One of the highest-earning authors of all time, Dan Brown, is facing charges in a London court for plagiarism. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh ares Random House, their own publishers, claiming that Brown stole ideas presented in their bestselling history book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, in which they wrote back in 1982 that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene, starting a blood line protected by the Knights Templar, an idea used by Brown in The Da Vinci Code. The trial began on Monday. The book The Da Vinci Code has been published in 40 different countries, selling more than 30 million copies. A movie based on the book, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, will be out in May, and is set to be presented at the Cannes Film Festival, but if the two historians are successful, the film's release may be threatened. |