Just £3.6m recouped as £12m of Welsh public funds go into films
NEARLY £12m of Welsh public funds have been put into film, television and video game projects that have recouped less than £3.7m so far, it has been revealed.
The Welsh Government is facing criticism of its public investment into films that have struggled commercially.
One movie project, action film Take Down, received £3.1m but went straight to DVD in the UK and has so far only recouped £941,413 of the loan. Take Down, which was shot in the Pinewood studio in Cardiff, as well as on Anglesey and the Isle of Man, told the story of a group of out-of-control teenagers sent by their frustrated parents to a boot camp on a remote island.
Only one project, 2016 war comedy drama Their Finest, has paid back the original loan in full.
Of a total of £11,970,463 invested, only £3,659,889.65 has been recouped to date.
The Welsh Government said that the productions are “at various stages of development, from preproduction, production, and postproduction, through to international broadcast and cinematic release”.
It said that the figures were not “a true reflection of the performance of each individual production, as the majority of productions have not yet benefited from international cinematic release or TV broadcast”.
It added: “Funds will continue to be recouped for at least another 10 years, through auxiliary sales such as DVD, Blu-ray, Netflix and Amazon.”
The figures were obtained by the BBC through a Freedom of Information request.
Welsh Conservative culture spokeswoman Suzy Davies told the broadcaster: “Even accepting that film production has a financial cycle which means that you don’t see profit straightaway, these are not very cheering figures.”
Referring to the investment in Take Down, she said taxpayers “would be right to question how much Welsh Government expected to get back from the investment of over £3m”.
The investments were made through a £30m Media Investment Budget funded by the Welsh Government and managed by Pinewood, which established a studio in Wentloog, Cardiff.
However, Pinewood has now pulled out of the role in managing the budget. Pinewood did not comment. A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “We are proud of our vibrant and successful creative industry, and our primary aim is to maximise its economic benefit for Wales.
“Latest figures show that over the last five years film and TV productions funded by Welsh Government have spent in excess of £100m in Wales, created over 2,000 fulltime-equivalent job years, benefited local supply chains and supported hundreds of businesses here.”