China's "Code" Red

Looks like China's got its own version of "don't ask, don't tell."

The Chinese government has ordered its movie theaters to stop showing the controversial blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, effective Friday, with nary an official word as to why.

Though one could almost certainly hazard a guess.

The decision to withdraw the Tom Hanks-starring film from Chinese screens came in the wake of increasing protests from the country's Catholic groups and just three weeks after the film premiered.

According to Reuters, the government issued an internal notice to state media Wednesday, informing them, sans explanation, of the movie ban and requesting that they cease all promotions for the film.

"The notice ordered us not to comment, discuss or even mention the name of the movie in any form in print," the unnamed source told Reuters.

"This is such a short notice from the film's distributor," We Hu, a spokesman for Shanghai's United Cinema Line Corp., told the Associated Press. "I don't know the reason either. We just do what we are told to do."

According to the notice, issued by the government's propaganda department, June 9 will mark the last day the movie will be shown before the nationwide yank.

"What can we say? We are surprised and disappointed about it," Jeff Blake, Sony's head of worldwide marketing and distribution, told the Los Angeles Times. "The good news is that we did a substantial amount of business in China."

The film's success in the censor-prone country only adds to the bafflement as to why its theater run was so suddenly cut short.

The religious thriller, based on Dan Brown's best-selling--and court-approved--novel, premiered in China May 19 and opened on 400 screens--the largest open of any U.S. film in the country ever. As of last weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, the Ron Howard-directed pic grossed $12.5 million at the Chinese box office, with $5 million of that banked during its opening weekend.

But several reports have hinted that it may be the film's success that led to its abrupt demise.

BBC's Beijing-based Quentin Sommerville said the government may have been worried about the film proving too popular among Chinese Christians, while the Times pointed to the country's tenuous relationship with Western media and its unease at potential overexposure through foreign films.

But the most prominent reasons given for the ban, in China as well as in several other anti-Code countries, including Pakistan, Fiji and several Indian states, concern the film's treatment of Catholicism.

In the days leading up to the film's premiere, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China, neither of which are affiliated with the Vatican, urged a boycott of the movie on moral grounds.

The film, as well as the book, has caused quite a stir among religious circles for its premise that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and begat a line of French royalty. The work has also taken heat for its alleged over-the-top portrayal of the Opus Dei sect, a conservative Christian group which is represented in the film by a murderous, masochistic albino monk.

After Sony, the film's distributor, refused to add a disclaimer to the film indicating it was based on a work of fiction, Vatican officials spoke out, urging Catholics to avoid the flick.

Still, while protests and bans of the film continue to pop up worldwide, they don't seem to be having too dire an effect on the film's overall box office.

Per BoxOfficeMojo.com, The Da Vinci Code has grossed $584 million worldwide since its May 19 premiere.