Crime pays for Eoin Colfer as film deal boosts cash

Ireland’s best-selling children’s author, Eoin Colfer, enjoyed a boost from his major Disney movie deal last year with profits at his firm jumping by more than €155,000 to more than €1.82m.

The figures show crime — at least of the fictional sort — continues to pay for the former Wexford primary school teacher, who has sold more than 25m books, translated into 44 languages around the globe, about the adventures of his teenage criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl.

In July 2013, Disney added to Colfer’s coffers when they confirmed that the adventures of Artemis Fowl are to be made into a movie with Hollywood actor Robert de Niro on board as executive producer on the project.