Euro box office blues

A dearth of strong, local films severely dented box office revenue in most of Europe this year, with only Britain holding steady thanks to a stream of homegrown favourites such as "Pride & Prejudice" and the latest "Harry Potter."

German film executives expect a decline of as much as 20 percent even with end-of-year help from blockbusters "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," while France, Spain and Italy could end the year down more than 10 percent, according to industry estimates.

More from Jeffrey Goldfarb and Karin Strohecker at Reuters.