Hollywood strike hits DaVinci movie

Pinewood Studios has become the first British casualty of the American screenwriters' strike which has crippled Hollywood.

Filming on the prequel to the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, had been due to start at the Buckinghamshire-based studio but has now been halted.

Pinewood Shepperton, of which Michael Grade is the chairman, was forced to issue an alert to the stock market saying the move was likely to cost it around £3 million.

The studio has refused to name the film involved but the Evening Standard understands it is the Da Vinci Code prequel Angels And Demons.

The release of the film, which reunites director Ron Howard with Hanks, has now been pushed back from Christmas 2008 to May 2009.

Pinewood Shepperton said that under the terms of its contract the production company would still have to pay for the rental of its film stages.

But it admitted that it is likely to lose around £3 million of "ancillary film revenues" for such things as electricity.

"Whilst every effort will now be made to replace those revenues this will prove challenging," the studio said.

It is now feared more movies which are due to be filmed in the UK could be affected.

The strike, which centres on differences over the writers' demands for a greater share of revenues from the internet, began in the USA on 5 November and immediately threw American television into disarray, with several late-night talk shows, including those hosted by Jay Leno and David Letterman, forced to show reruns.

Production also ground to a halt on many prime-time comedies and dramas and actors, including those from Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty, have voiced their support by joining the striking writers on the picket lines.

But the dispute has now spread to the film studios, who had attempted to remain unscathed by stockpiling movies in anticipation of a long strike.

Columbia Pictures was forced to delay production on Angels And Demons after announcing the script by Oscar-winning screenwriter and union member Akiva Goldman, needed further work.

This week Warner Bros said Johnny Depp's adventure drama Shantaram, which was to begin shooting in India in February, had been put on hold due to "strike-related script issues".

United Artists said it was postponing the Oliver Stone-directed film Pinkville, a drama about the investigation into the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam starring Bruce Willis and Woody Harrelson.

Negotiations between the scriptwriters and the major studios are expected to resume on Monday.