Vatican to boycott 'Angels and Demons'

London, March 23 (IANS) The Vatican is reportedly planning to authorise a boycott of Ron Howard's upcoming movie 'Angels & Demons', a prequel to his 2006 controversial hit 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Directed by Howard, the picture stars Tom Hanks and is due for release this summer. 'The Da Vinci Code' is based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown.

Church officials previously called for a boycott of Hanks' first outing in the thriller series and the second movie, also written by Brown, is also in the line of causing controversy because of its religious overtones, reports contactmusic.com.

The Vatican's officials newspaper, Avvenire, ran a story March 20, stating that the Catholic Church 'cannot approve' of the movie, with another Italian publication La Stampa, warning that officials will call for a boycott ahead of the film's release May 15 this year.

The story is set in Rome, but filming was held up there after Vatican officials refused the crew permission to shoot in the religious site and at several other important locations in the city.