Film slowdown hits Megalomedia

THE slowdown in the movie industry in recent months has damaged one of Europe's biggest digital effects and computer animation companies, it emerged yesterday. Shares in Megalomedia, whose chairman and majority shareholder is Lord Saatchi (left), fell 30 per cent to 22.5p after the company warned that the downturn in the volatile industry would affect its interim and full-year results.

The company's core subsidiaries Forward Publishing and effects production company Framestore - which is famed for its work in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and summer blockbuster Lost in Space, - were still performing "well up to expectations," it said. But CFC, Megalomedia's film special effects unit, had experienced a fall in orders. The London- based company said its profits would be significantly lower in the half ending 30 September compared with the same period last year. Trading and profitability in the second half would be stronger, but the results for the full year would probably be down on last year, it said.