Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (whose birthday was yesterday!) are trying to protect their baby Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull from the same critical lashing that Da Vinci Code endured those two long years ago at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie premiers there on Sunday, and Variety reports that the pair has decided not to have a huge party for the film, for instance, seeing as the Da Vinci Code’s pyramid-totin blowout attracted a whole bunch of attention to the film. That attention turned out to be not such a good thing when the audience laughed at the parts where they were supposed to gasp and booed at the parts where they were supposed to clap. We live, we learn. 

Furthermore, access to the actors and director (i.e. Spielberg) will be strictly controlled. The screening itself is to include no press whatsoever, just 250 ‘filmmakers’. Whether or not paying audiences will be allowed to see the film once it is officially released on May 22 is unclear at this point. But it seems unlikely.

 Considering that The Da Vinci Code eventually grossed $758 million worldwide, it is unclear why they care so much what Cannes-enites think. Lucas, after releasing the three most recent Star Wars prequels, should be all but immune to hearing that his movies suck. Alot. And Spielberg is f**king Steven Spielberg. If you tell him he sucks, he’ll make a movie about how much you suck and then make a billion dollars on it. He did it to the Nazis. He can do it to you.

 For a film so fuelled by nostalgia, it hardly matters even to us highly-attuned individuals what the critics say, anyway. We’re gonna see it. Stoned if necessary, yes, but we’ll see it nonetheless. Stay right here on B&U to find out when the Cannes screening is ultimately moved to Lucas’ hometown, then to Lucas’ basement, then to a secret movie silo where Lucas can watch it alone. For eternity. And we’ll never know how bad it sucks or how hideously racist it may be. So there.