Revenues at the Dublin based production firm behind the much anticipated Saipan movie last year increased almost five fold to €149.93m.
In a bumper year for Wild Atlantic Pictures Ltd last year, revenues increased by 380% from €31.18m to €149.93m in 2023.
Currently, the group's 'Saipan' movie is in production and stars Steve Coogan as Mick McCarthy and Éanna Hardwicke as Roy Keane in the film about the events leading up to Ireland's 2002 World Cup campaign.
In a busy 2024 for the company, the directors state that the group has this year commenced work on five new projects and incorporated a new subsidiary for each project for the purpose of claiming Government movie credits.
Another one of the firm’s movie’s in production in 2024 is ‘Finnegan’s Foursome’ directed and starring Edward Burns.
The movie follows two middle-aged brothers and their respective sons who travel to Ireland to play the Finnegan Family’s annual golf outing, where they distribute the ashes of the family patriarch.
Wild Atlantic Pictures is led by Macdara Kelleher, Eoin Egan and John Keville
and the accounts show that the bulk of the 2023 production income was recorded in the US at €122.9m.
The company last year paid out €35.44m in salary costs compared to €8.2m under that heading in 2022.
The company recorded modest profits of €34,039 as the company's cost of sales increased from €30.9m to €149.42m
The directors’ report states that "the results of the group for the financial year and the financial position at the financial year end were as anticipated by the directors".
In the year under review, Wild Atlantic Pictures Ltd obtained in May 2023 from the State €2m to €5m in corporation tax credits connected to the making of the global hit movie, Cocaine Bear.
Shot on location in Co Wicklow and starring Keri Russell and the late Ray Liotta, the movie - which grossed over $89m at the global box office - was loosely inspired by the story of a bear who reputedly ingested a large amount of lost cocaine that was dropped from a drug smuggler’s airplane in the rural areas of Georgia in the US in the 1980s.
The Wild Atlantic Pictures business derives its revenues from the production of motion pictures and TV series primarily for delivery to third party film and TV studios.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
