The chief executive of Pinewood Shepperton studios has said that despite the UK being chosen for filming JJ Abrams' new Star Wars movie, a looming crisis in production capacity could still drive away Hollywood blockbusters.
Ivan Dunleavy said that Pinewood managed to bounce back to a pre-tax profit of £1.3m in the year to the end of March as the company unveiled its annual results on Thursday.
However the studio business revealed that it has already spent almost £2m on its latest attempt to convince authorities to greenlight an ambitious project to double the size of its Pinewood lot in Buckinghamshire.
"[The makers of Star Wars] have been hugely lucky to get in ahead of everyone else," Dunleavy said. "Demand for high-profile productions continues to rise. I would say the question is what has happened to [potential film production] two, three, four, five and others in the queue?".
Pinewood Shepperton's total revenues were £55.6m last year, with an operating profit of £5.4m.
Revenues from its film division showed "strong growth" climbing to £35.2m. The company's biggest productions last year were Disney's Maleficent (Pinewood) and Thor: The Dark World (Shepperton).
"It is a big result on the film side," he said. "It demonstrates quite tangibly why we need more space. The market is there."
Last month South Buckinghamshire district council rejected Pinewood's second planning application to secure a £200m Hollywood-style expansion plan, with a public inquiry into the decision scheduled to start on November 19.
The studio's first attempt, called Project Pinewood, also failed to gain clearance and ultimately cost £7.1m – pushing the company into pre-tax loss in 2011.
Dunleavy said that he did not expect the second planning application to cost as much, but that Pinewood was fully committed to winning clearance for the plan.
"We are reusing a lot of the work we invested in the first time around, like environmental analysis," he said. "The proposal for adding more capacity is clearly a simpler one than Project Pinewood [so] I don't anticipate anything like the [cost] previously. However, our shareholders are supportive of those sorts of sums for something as critically important to the future as this."
The only blight on the balance sheet was the performance of the TV division, which made revenues of £5.2m. Shows filmed at the company's studios include last weekend's final of BBC1's The Voice.
Pinewood said the TV division faces issues including "tough ongoing market conditions" and its facilities were often taken up for use by film companies.
Dunleavy added that the biggest factor affecting the TV division was its closure for four months for refurbishment, which hit revenues.
In January Pinewood struck a multi-year deal with Camelot to broadcast the National Lottery, which involved the building of a third TV facility.
Pinewood said that since the start of its new financial year it has been "experiencing high levels of utilisation in television, playing host to a number of productions and several film productions have contracted stages".
The company paid a final dividend of 1.5p a share; in 2011 it did not pay one.
Net debt was £44.7m at 31 March, down from £50.4m a year ago.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook
