Ron Howard says Vatican interfered; church denies it

ROME - Director Ron Howard claimed yesterday that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his "Angels & Demons" - a charge the Vatican said was purely a publicity stunt.

The film, which stars Tom Hanks and is based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, has its world premiere today in Rome.

Howard said yesterday that he hadn't sought cooperation from the Vatican based on the opposition he encountered filming "The Da Vinci Code," another Brown novel that angered many Catholic leaders.

But he said the Vatican nevertheless exerted influence regarding his filming permits, and he was told it would not be possible even to shoot scenes in Rome that had churches in the background.

"When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence," he said. "Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us that through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence."

"Was I surprised? No. Am I a little frustrated at times? Sure," he said.

Nevertheless he said he felt that he was able to preserve the overall "Angels & Demons" experience. For the Sistine Chapel alone, some 20 members of the production crew - posing as tourists - took photos of all the frescoes, floor mosaics and paintings of the tiny chapel until they were told to stop, the film's Web site says.

"Angels & Demons" features Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon of "The Da Vinci Code" fame. This time, the Vatican turns to him after the Illuminati kidnap four cardinals considered front-runners to be the next pope, and threaten to explode a bomb at the Vatican.

The 2006 film "The Da Vinci Code" took in more than $750 million worldwide and prompted calls for boycotts by church leaders worldwide.

Reaction from church leaders to "Angels & Demons" has been more muted, though one Italian bishop, Monsignor Antonio Rosario Mennonna, said Saturday that the film was "highly denigrating, defamatory and offensive" to the Catholic Church, the ANSA news agency reported.

Hanks drew laughs yesterday when he was asked what the toughest stunt was during filming. His answer? Simply running.

"There is not a regular cobblestone, there is not a straight step, there is not an easy way to cross any street in all of the Eternal City," he said. "Essentially death traps and twisted ankles await you any time you try to go out for a slow stroll. How we did not come out with shin splints and Ace bandages around our limbs I will never ever know.

"It must have been divine intervention," he said. *