Tony Earnshaw: Can Harry Potter help turn the tide for the film industry?

Without putting too fine and banal a point on it, this is extremely bad news.

Moreover, it underlines what 99 per cent of us have known for a long time: that things are going to get much, much worse before anything gets even remotely better.

Let's look at it this way. During the Second World War, cinema audiences increased as anyone and everyone went to the pictures to lose themselves in the artifice of the movies.

It didn't matter whether the films on offer were good, bad or indifferent; people just went.

Often they didn't even bother to check who was in the film.

Or whether it was a comedy, a musical or a western.

They simply bought a ticket and wallowed in escapism.

Okay, so the world has changed. Never again will Britain face

the Blitz or see daily air battles in the skies above its green and pleasant land. We don't need to fear invasion. But as Average Joe fights a more nefarious financial war, he is thinking long and hard before he puts his hand in his pocket for frivolities like cinema tickets.

And it's starting to have an impact on a global scale. News is beginning to leak out that studio complexes like Pinewood Shepperton are making much less revenue and profit than in previous years.

Quite simply, they're not picking up the big-budget productions that they used to.

And if fewer films are being made, even fewer are on release.

That means the choice is limited. Which inevitably means potential cinemagoers will go to the movies only once a week rather than twice.

The knock-on is obvious, and it's critical.

According to figures in the United States, 25 per cent of recent box office revenue has been generated by 3D movies.

Yet that trend cannot (and will not) continue.

To add to the film sector's woes, limp sequels like Sex in the City 2 and lame blockbusters such as Prince of Persia have failed to ignite interest.

Industry observers claim a huge amount of hope is being placed on part one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which opens in November. It will, of course, be huge.

But it's only one film. And if the trend towards a slump continues, even Harry's magic won't be enough to prevent cinema slipping into a very dark, black hole...

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