Royalties dispute 'could kill UK film industry'

Britain's film industry could be killed off within a decade by the damaging dispute between actors and producers, a minister warned yesterday.

Kim Howells, a Culture minister, said film making could be in the same position as mining in the 1980s – when no one believed industrial action could destroy the industry.

Yet, he said, only the smallest of differences between the two sides were now blocking new film production.

The next James Bond and the second Harry Potter are the only big-budget movies due to be filmed in Britain this year.

The dispute centres on the demand by actors for a share of the profits of films sold as videos and DVDs or shown on television, as paid to their American counterparts. At present, actors receive no extra payment beyond an initial "buy-out" fee, however many times a film is shown on television or sold on video.

Mr Howells met the actors' union, Equity, and the producers' body, Pact, last week to try to break the deadlock. He said yesterday: "The British film industry will be dead within 10 years if it goes on."

Actors including Alan Rickman, John Thaw, Vanessa Redgrave and Tom Wilkinson, who received an Oscar nomination this week for In The Bedroom, have backed the claim.

Pact has warned that American studios have been proving unwilling to bring films to Britain because of the disruption. Steve Norris, the British film commissioner, has predicted a "catastrophic" year unless agreement is reached.