Targeting projects with production budgets of up to £2 million ($3.2 million), Pinewood will take an investment position while also providing studio space and ancillary services to crews. The studio has said that it aims to target up to four productions per year, with a total investment of around £1.6 million annually.

Pinewood Shepperton CEO Ivan Dunleavy states that Pinewood’s new investments will be of huge benfit to the UK industry, as it will “offer British films access to the world class facilities and production expertise at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios which would normally be beyond their budget.”

Along with these new investment plans, Pinewood also wishes to build an additional 30,000 sq ft stage for both film and television production.

These investment and expansion announcements come as the Pinewood group post a pre-tax profit of £5.8 million ($9.4 million) for 2010, a figure that’s up 31 per cent from £4.5 million (47.3 million) in 2009.

“We have grown the top line by winning big budget international films which have been attracted to Pinewood by the superior quality of our assets and the range of services that we can offer,” said Dunleavy. “Our television business continued to perform well at the top end of a difficult broadcast market.”

Indeed, by attracting large scale films like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which filmed at Pinewood in 2010, and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo Cabret, which made use of Shepperton Studios – as well as other big budget productions like  Clash of the Titans, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class and The Woman in Black – Pinewood Shepperton is firmly establishing itself as a global industry leader.