Constantin Film has announced increased earnings for the first quarter of 2003 ahead of a May 10 meeting to decide on a response to the takeover bid from Highlight Communications.

Earnings improved by Euros 600,000 over the first quarter of 2002 to Euros 1m, but sales fell 35% from 2002's Euros 36.8m to Euros 23.9m in the quarter.

According to a statement, "the lower sales are due almost exclusively to the reduction of Euros 9.2m in world sales because no international in-house production has been released so far, in contrast to the same quarter the previous year."

Meanwhile, Constantin's sales of Euros 11m from TV licensing represented an increase of Euros 5.4m over the first quarter of 2002.

The goal is still for "sales of between Euros 120m - Euros 135m for 2003 as a whole. The corridor we are aiming to reach with the EBIT margin in 2003 is between 2 and 5 per cent."

Meanwhile, the company announced that Milla Jovovich had been signed to play the lead in Constantin's next international in-house production, in association with Screen Gems: Resident Evil - Apocalypse

In addition, Constantin will go into production next year on an adaptation of Patrick Sueskind's bestseller Perfume.