Mrs Brown spurs on profit at Dublin Cinema Group

Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie and Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow helped to triple operating profits at the Ward-family controlled Dublin Cinema Group last year.

New figures lodged by Dublin Cinema Group show that operating profits at the firm more than trebled from €278,942 to €917,269 in the 12 months to the end of October 31 last.

The sharp rise in profits took place after the year’s biggest movies were released before October last including the top three of the four grossing movies in Ireland in 2014: Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie (€3.8m), The Lego Movie (€3.4m) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (€2.5m).

During the 12-months, the firm’s gross profit rose 16% from €2.457m to €2.65m.

The firm’s administrative expenses reduced 20% from €2.179m to €1.736m.

The Ward family owns the Savoy and Screen cinemas in Dublin. The firm last year recorded pre-tax profits of €950,737 compared to a profit of €18.6m in 2013.

However, the pre-tax profit in 2013 arose from the firm booking a gain of more than €18m when the Wards sold their interest in a Cork multiplex to the Anderson family, who were partners of the Wards before a bitter legal split in 2013.

The Wards and Andersons controlled about half of the Irish cinema market between them until they went their separate ways in 2013, with the Dublin Cinema Group the linchpin of their combined operations.

The profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €190,958.