The Da Vinci pitch: How do you create anticipation for a movie when 50 million readers already know the plot? [...]
The plagiarism trial brought against Dan Brown by a pair of religious conspiracy historians provided kilometres of coverage for all things DVC only six weeks before the film's May 18 release. Historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of three authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, started their suit back in 2004, but the trial only began this February and wound up only a month ago.
Brown and Leigh and Baigent shared the same publisher - effectively Random House was suing itself. During the trial, online booksellers Amazon reported sales of Holy Blood, Holy Grail rocketing by 3500 per cent. Sales of The Da Vinci Code, already a worldwide bestseller, rose 187 per cent. While the judge deliberated, Baigent's new book The Jesus Papers was released on the same day as the US paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code. In The Guardian, Baigent said of the dual release date, "total coincidence, at least from our side". But even Baigent agreed there had been a lot of coincidences, adding, "at least I assume they are coincidences".
