Popular online film spoofs 'Da Vinci Code'

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PORTSMOUTH, N.H., June 21 (UPI) -- A short film spoofing "The Da Vinci Code" is gaining momentum in the online world, and now Hollywood is knocking at the makers' door.

The 35-minute film, found at www.TheNormanRockwellCode.com, comes from writer-director Alfred Thomas Catalfo and producer Marc Dole and has had more than 750,000 hits since it was made available May 19 -- the same day the film version of "The Da Vinci Code" was released.

And it makes its first public screening at the Normal Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., June 25.

According to the release, "Hollywood is getting into the act with studios, producers and investors inquiring about having the filmmakers expand the concept into a feature film."

In this parody, called "The Norman Rockwell Code," symbologist Langford Fife of Stockbridge Community College, the son of Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife of Mayberry, N.C., is led on a journey starting with a shocking murder at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Both Fife and his sidekick Sopha Poisson of the Quebec Secret Service then set out to understand a "secret society, a legendary bloodline and a battle with sinister forces."

The film, in joint production by Big Cannoli Pictures and Hatchling Studios, was shot over four weekends in seacoast New Hampshire where author Dan Brown lives and is dedicated to Don Knotts, who played Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show."