The Da Vinci Code is coming to Netflix: How much does it cost to film at the Louvre, by the way?

Paris, its Eiffel Tower, its famous Avenue Elysee… and its Louvre. A true jewel of French history, the museum has hosted the filming of movies, TV series and other commercials for many years.

In 2004, Ron Howard directed a feature film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, which sold 40 million copies worldwide.

Searchlight spent $6 million to acquire the rights to the book. Nothing is too expensive to bring to the screen the adventures of the eminent specialist in the study of symbols, Robert Langdon. In the first part, the man played by Tom Hanks is urgently summoned to Paris, specifically to the Louvre, where the curator was killed.

So what is it worth?

For the needs of the film, the production contacted the museum directly to shoot in the setting selected by Dan Brown. The special rent that pays. For this, the leaders of the Louvre show the rental price very clearly. In 2004, it ranged from €7,500 to €24,000 per day (not including staff costs) if you wanted to shoot in the corridors. If the teams want to shoot in the yard of the pitch, the price will be up to 70,000 euros per day.

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What did it cost to shoot The Da Vinci Code? According to This article from Le Parisien, which dates back to 2005, the production spent more than 1 million euros on a 12-day shoot (including 3 days of location scouting). The price, which is explained by the fact that the teams also rented the famous square yard to install the equipment. Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and the rest of the team also had to comply with certain requirements of the French museum, including: no filming on busy days. The camera shot at night and on Tuesday, the only day the Louvre is closed.

Price list that has changed

Since then, the Louvre museum has used slightly different prices. In The new price list is published in 2021, the board of directors appears to have revised the numbers down for some. Thus, prices on streaming platforms range from 8,000 to 15,000 euros per day (without VAT for indoor or outdoor filming). Netflix seems to have taken advantage of this offer, offering to film at the Louvre for its French series Lupine.