If the past 12 months of sofa-hopping histrionics and creeps-inducing coverage have demonstrated anything, it's that in this celebrity-saturated age of blogging and flogging, even a seemingly armour plated superstar can fall victim to too much controversy. Just look at the grosses of Mission: Impossible III.

One group certain to be mopping its collective furrowed brow of sweat, then, must be the braintrust that sank $125-million US into the adaptation of Dan Brown's mega-selling potboiler The Da Vinci Code.

Already the Tom Hanks-led thriller has been greeted with the ire of everyone ranging from Christians to albinos. But does a ruckus, while raising the profile of the film, translate into greater ticket sales?

Religion aside, the movie also must face down another demographic even more demanding and potentially hostile than albinos and Catholics -- the readers who made the book a Harry Potter-sized success.

Given the film's critical reception in Cannes -- which could generously be described as lukewarm -- the movie will need to please its own faithful flock if mainstream audiences snub both it and Hanks' curiously uncurled coif.

With Da Vinci now playing, we decided to look at nine other films that have generated controversy -- some to great acclaim and others to decidedly more mixed results.

WHY THE UPROAR: Its unrelenting violence turned stomachs. Its by-the-Good Book storytelling was derided as anti-semitic by Jewish organizations.

WHY THE UPROAR: Psycho lesbians, date rape, blood-splattered sex -- Instinct was conceived to offend. Particularly fuming were gay organizations about the film's ice-pick-wielding bisexual leading lady.

CRITICAL MASS: Over-ripe acting and a howler of a screenplay -- "She's brilliant! She's evil!" -- and yet it was sexy, trashy and thrilling enough to avoid a Showgirls-scale disaster.

WHY THE UPROAR: Few films have been as sexually explicit as this searing drama about the self-destructive spiral of an American (Marlon Brando) in Paris after his wife's suicide.

WHY THE UPROAR: Martin Scorsese's 1988 opus stopped short of suggesting Jesus reproduced, but its portrait of a fallible Messiah nevertheless sparked the wrath of Christian organizations who picketed their way into the headlines.

WHY THE UPROAR: Ang Lee's subdued drama about cowboys whose friendship turns into a love affair had conservatives imploring moviegoers to reject it at the box-office.

WHY THE UPROAR: After waiting 22 years, fans wanted an epic Jedi adventure. Instead with this 1999 prequel, they got Jar Jar Binks, slobbery frog men and a whiny, wooden nine-year-old future Dark Lord of the Sith.

BOX-OFFICE GROSS: $425 million -- but irreparable damage was done to a franchise once considered untouchable. Or as many a fan posted on a message board: "George Lucas raped my childhood!"

WHY THE UPROAR: Oliver Stone's satirical sledgehammer about two homicidal maniacs who become media darlings was accused of glorifying murder and inspiring at least one copycat case.

WHY THE UPROAR: Stone pins the slaying of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on the military industrial complex -- a theory assailed by journalists and politicians.

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