One of the most anticipated movies of next year is based on uncovering a mystery — so it's no surprise that the trailer for "The Da Vinci Code" is cryptic.

Yet that's not the only reason: They haven't even started filming the movie yet.

(Check out the full trailer in Overdrive.)

Instead of showing the stars in the cast (such as Tom Hanks playing Harvard symbology expert Dr. Robert Langdon) or the film's international locations (such as Paris), the trailer instead starts with something that doesn't seem connected with the movie at all: what appear to be deep canyons. As the camera swerves in and out, some writing is visible on the walls of the canyons, but it's unreadable save for a large letter "V."

Fans of the book — and, with more than 25 million copies sold, there are a lot of them — will immediately recognize the significance of that "V," which the book claims is an ancient feminine symbol. It becomes an important clue, found in Leonardo da Vinci's painting of "The Last Supper": The book argues that it is not the apostle John sitting next to Jesus, but Mary Magdalene.

But the trailer doesn't dwell on that or any of the other twists in the story. An announcer intones, "It is so powerful that men died to protect it, and there are men who would kill to expose it. It is a message that has been hidden for centuries, right before our eyes."

At this point, it becomes clear that what seemed like canyons were actually extreme close-ups of cracks in a painting, as the camera pulls out to reveal da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." The announcer continues, "What if the world's greatest works of art held a secret that would change the course of mankind forever? No matter what you've read, no matter what you believe, the journey has just begun."

For the filmmakers behind "The Da Vinci Code," the journey begins June 30 in Paris, where they'll start production for scenes at the Louvre. It's set to wrap on October 19 in England.

Check out the full trailer in Overdrive.

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