Hollywood production in UK down by 65%

London (Guardian) - Investment by Hollywood productions filming in the
UK has dropped dramatically this year and an upturn is not expected until the beginning of 2002. According to figures from the British Film Commission, the total value of overseas productions shooting in the UK from January to June 2001 slumped to $109m, a drop of more than 65 per cent.

It looks as if British studio facilities were hit by the threatened US actors strike as well as rising international competition. Screendaily reports that in the same period last year, big-budget productions such as The Mummy Returns pushed up spending in the UK. This year, by contrast, productions have been relatively low budget, including Stephen Daldry's The Hours, which cost $22.8m. However, the figures do not include any statistics for Harry Potter.

Apparently the delays caused by the threatened strike means that production levels could get worse before levelling off. July was a disappointing month for the studios and August looks like being the same.
"There has been a hiatus because nothing was going into pre-production because of SAG (Screen Actors Guild)," Shepperton's assistant studio manager, David Godfrey told Screendaily. "Everybody put their projects through at the start of the year. The UK has lost a lot of production that would have gone into production from February onwards, but didn't because of SAG."