THE double Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman has made an angry attack on the “euthanasia” of the film industry, which he complains tries to “bury” any film that is not an instant cash cow.

“If the film doesn’t make money over that first weekend of its release, they will bury it,” said Hoffman, speaking yesterday as he visited Britain for the premiere of his latest film, Stranger Than Fiction, at The Times BFI London Film Festival.

The 69-year-old actor, whose films include The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy and Rain Man, said: “Euthanasia is legal in Hollywood. They just kill the film if it doesn’t succeed immediately.”

Hoffman criticised the film industry for being obsessed with looking almost hourly at the box-office takings of a film in its first few days of release, meaning poor quality but populist films could push out higher-quality productions.

“If the movie doesn’t make money it must therefore be a bad work,” said Hoffman, who won best actor Oscars for Kramer vs Kramer and Rain Man. “I don’t remember a time when there was so much respect for bad work.”

However, Hoffman was encouraged by the more recent success of some American films. “You cannot stop the artists.”

For Hoffman, “the most exciting film I’ve seen this year” is the small-budget Little Miss Sunshine, which tells the story of a dysfunctional family driving across America.

The film, which stars Alan Arkin and Toni Collette, has been a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in recent months.

Despite such causes for optimism, however, the star argued that it was still easier to obtain funding for a $60m (€47m) film than a $6m production because studios only work in big money.

Hoffman shot to fame in 1967 with The Graduate, in which a young man is seduced by Mrs Robinson, an older family friend.

Hoffman, speaking at a session organised by Five US, described how he had nearly failed to land the part and how, later, screen tests of the film disappointed audiences.

He said he had been struggling for work on the New York stage and was marketed by agents as a “character actor” before being proposed for the role. “Character meant you were either ugly, ethnic or Jewish,” he said.

“The leading men and most of the actors were white and tall.”

At the screenings, several people in Hollywood criticised Mike Nichols, the director, for “miscasting the lead”.

The star also told how the director John Schlesinger initially did not want him for his film Midnight Cowboy. Schlesinger “didn’t even want to see me as he had seen The Graduate and thought I was a star,” said Hoffman.

“He didn’t want a star.”

Hoffman also revealed that he initially turned down the lead in Kramer vs Kramer because it was too close to his own experiences. “I was getting divorced myself and didn’t want to do it, but in the end it was terrific.”

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