Written by on Jun 30, 2015. Posted in On Location

Pinewood Studios reports £10m revenue boost as expansion work begins

Pinewood Studios has reported a GBP 10 million revenue boost for the year ending 31 March 2015. The facility made GBP 75 million, compared to just over GBP 64 million the previous year. Operating profit increased by more than a million pounds to GBP 5.8 million.

Work has now started on the Pinewood Studios Development Framework (PSDF), a GBP 200 million construction plan. In the first phase, five sound stages and ten workshops will be built for opening next year.

“Following the successful share placing in April 2015, construction has begun on the first phase of the Pinewood expansion,” said Ivan Dunleavy, Chief Executive of Pinewood Studios Group.

“This is an exciting development for the Group and we are pleased with the support and commitment given to us through the placing.

“Although we have hosted the three largest film productions of the year, being Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (above), Avengers: Age of Ultron and the 24th Bond film Spectre, we continue to be unable to meet all the demand from large films. This will be partly addressed by the first phase of the Pinewood expansion.”

The new Star Wars movie was the biggest film to shoot at Pinewood last year and the facility has been confirmed as the base for at least the next two entries in the Star Wars franchise. The next, Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One, starts filming in the coming months.

In March Pinewood placed eight million shares and created new bank facilities to raise GBP 30 million to part-fund the first phase of the PSDF.

Pinewood also recently announced the launch of Pinewood Productions Ireland Limited, a full service production company that will assist Pinewood clients filming on location in Ireland. The Star Wars production team filmed partly on location off the coast of County Kerry last year.

(Image: Lucasfilm)