Jay Leno on Monday night jokingly said the new nickname of The Da Vinci Code is "The Passion of the Cash."

The Ron Howard-Tom Hanks movie earned $231.8 million worldwide in its weekend opening — $154.7 mil international, $77.1 mil domestic. The Da Vinci Code was the number one film in every country that it opened.

Already, horrendous bootlegs of the movie are selling for sixty cents on the streets of China.

Sony's Columbia Pictures now owns the rights to the character Robert Langdon, and is set not only to make a "prequel" to The Da Vinci Code from author Dan Brown's previous book Angels and Demons, but also to eventually make a sequel movie from Brown's so-far-unreleased book The Solomon Key, which is expected to be published in 2007.

The phrase "The Passion of the Cash" seems to have first been used in April 6, 2004, on the blog Like Anna Karina's Sweater, in discussing the 1973 movie The Gospel Road, which starred Johnny Cash as Himself, Robert Elfstrom as Jesus Christ, and June Carter Cash as Mary Magdalene.

Of this film, Andy Dursin of The Aisle Seat said: "Shot on location and funded by Cash, this well-intentioned but odd and not especially cinematic tale offers a blond Jesus (director Robert Elfstrom) and a fairly forgettable assortment of songs."

Image: June Carter Cash as Mary Magdalene in The Gospel Road

Mary Magdalene | Jesus Christ | Johnny Cash | June Carter Cash | Gospel Road | Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | Ron Howard | Tom Hanks