In a two page tirade Walker slammed British films with, "many didn't deserve to do better; they were itsy-bitsy, telly inspired and formulaic, low on aspiration if high on budget, and would have been better flogged off immediately to the box where they belonged.

Meanwhile in an interview with the Guardian, co-founder of Miramax and uber-producer Harvey Weinstein (Pulp Fiction, Sex Lies & Videotape, English Patient, Gangs of New York) explained his love of the British cinema - 'but I love Britain. The literary tradition and the writers are incredible; it has the best technical crews in the world; two of the best studios in the world and a rich history of story and movie experience. You just need to get over the barrier of British newspapers not supporting British movies. It's not such a tough thing'.

To further dampen Alexslander's squib, analysts have been commenting that his judgement of success on the basis of box office gross is all wrong. The explosion of international distribution, alongside global video, DVD, pay-TV and TV sales makes a domestic box office gross little more than a marketing campaign, usually taking some 20-30% of the final revenue. Bridget Jones, for example, has taken around $60m at the UK box office, against over $200m worldwide. When TV, video and DVD sales are included, this figure should well exceed $300m, five times more than the UK gross.

It's not as if the US makes a profit from a cinema release. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, the average earnings of a film at the US box office last year was $16.0m. This compares with an average budget of $54.8m for a studio picture and $21.8m for an independent. With marketing costs included, the budgets are $82.1m and $31.9 respectively. So even the most successful film market in the world loses sizeable sums at the box office.

Yes there is a big need for debate over the quality of our nation's films, and the manner in which they are developed, produced and marketed. But using box office grosses alone to identify the success and failures is both misleading and unnecessarily alarmist.