05/04/2005

The UK entertainment group Metrodome has turned from red to black with profits before tax reported at £244,000 in 2004 against £109,000 losses in 2003, and a yearly turnover up 16% at £5,683,000 in 2004.
According to the group’s financial results, the company’s turnover was spread over a wider selection of titles with an increasing focus on its catalogue.
The highlight of the year was the UK theatrical release of the Oscar winning film Monster with Charlize Theron which grossed over £2.6m and became Metrodome Distribution’s biggest-ever box office success. The DVD release of Monster has also sold over 90,000 units since last October, generating more than £800,000 in revenue, a success almost matched by the DVD release of Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut which sold over 80,000 units.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Careful cash management also contributed to the company’s positive results as stressed by Metrodome Group’s chairman Bruce Fireman: “I am pleased to report the progress in prudent cash management and our profitability has enabled us for the first time in four years to acquire a full slate of product for the whole of the year ahead. The first half of the schedule was also completely paid for by year-end” (with acquisition and release costs spending valued at £493,000).

Metrodome’s upcoming theatrical line-up includes many Scandinavian titles such as the 10th Dogme film in Your Hands by Annette K Olesen to be released on 29 April, the Swedish entry for the 2004 Foreign language Oscar nomination Evil by Mikael Hafström to be released next June, and Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy to be released next September. Other Scandinavian acquisitions include the Danish film The Green Butchers [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the Swedish film Daybreak, named Best European film at the Berlinale 2004.
Metrodome’s other key releases in 2005 include the US political drama The Assassination of Richard Nixon with Sean Penn to be released this month, and the Italian winner at the 2004 Locarno Film Festival: Saverio Costanzo’s Private to be released in May.