Pinewood-Shepperton: 67% drop in operating profits
by Annika Pham
Pinewood-Shepperton, the biggest film studios in the UK, registered a severe drop of 67.5% in operating profits in 2005, from £11.4m in 2004 to £3.7m in 2005, a fall that reflected the overall decrease in investment in UK film production last year (from £812m to £559m), due mostly to film tax uncertainties.
According to the group’s final results, which were announced yesterday, film revenues in particular dropped by 31%, from £26.2m to £18m. The toughest period was the first half of 2005, when revenues were halved compared to the previous year. However, in the second half of the year, occupancy levels of the film studios were back on track with the presence of big budget productions such as The Da Vinci Code, Children of Men and Stormbreaker.
“Trading conditions, particularly for the first half of 2005, were challenging, resulting principally from our film customers’ uncertainty, now resolved, over the outcome of the government’s review of UK film fiscal policy”, commented Michael Grade, Chairman of Pinewood-Shepperton. “However, as anticipated, film revenues during the latter part of the year improved and made an important contribution to the full year’s results”. CEO Ivan Dunleavy added: “Our long-term strategy remains on course: to increase utilisation of our studio facilities, enhance the scale and quality of the studios and further grow our TV and media park revenues”.
Thanks indeed to a stable stream of revenue from the group’s Media Park (£6.5m in 2005) and a 32% increase in TV revenues (from £6m to £8.9m), Pinewood-Shepperton’s overall revenue for 2005 fell by only 13%, from £38.7m to £33.4m.
Studio improvements in 2005 comprised the construction, at Shepperton, of an additional 8,000 square feet of workshops and the completion of the Underwater Filming Stage.
Major contracted film productions currently at the studios include Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute, Paramount Pictures’s Stardust, directed by Matthew Vaugh starring Robert de Niro, and the new James Bond title Casino Royal, also partly shot elsewhere.
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