Publisher Ian Hyland has acquired the Dublin post-production studio Windmill Lane Pictures.
The business, which grew out of the famous recording studios on the Dublin quays where U2 recorded some of their earlier work, ceased trading earlier this year on foot of mounting losses.
Mr Hyland has acquired the trading name and related brand assets from Grant Thornton via his Elevation Ventures business and plans to relaunch the brand as an international documentary film maker.
The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Windmill Lane Pictures is a separate business to Windmill Lane recording studios, now on Ringsend Road, Dublin 4. It moved to a premises on Herbert Street in 2009 from its original address on Windmill Lane, close to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay.
Mr Hyland, who is also owner of Catalyst Media Group in Dublin and Quartet Book Publishing in London, will become chairman of Windmill Lane Pictures.
“Windmill Lane Pictures is an iconic creative brand with an unrivalled legacy and reach across the global creative community,” Mr Hyland said. “It is now our intention to create a new beginning for Windmill Lane Pictures as a documentary and film-maker with an international focus.”
Mr Hyland said one of the first projects Windmill Lane Pictures would work on is an international co-production on the history and future of Irish America.
The original Windmill Lane Studios was founded in the late 1970s as a recording studio and TV commercial post-production facility. During the 1980s, it hosted of a string of big artists, including U2 and Bruce Springsteen, benefiting from the increased demand for music videos sparked by the popularity of MTV.
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In the early 1990s, the recording and visual and audio post-production work split. Windmill Lane Pictures became known for TV commercials and for other production services.
It produced U2’s Zoo TV and Zooropa Tour visuals and, in the 2000s, worked with some big film and TV directors including Jim Sheridan, John Boorman and Neil Jordan.
However, more recently it has struggled financially.
Accounts show it incurred a loss of €174,833 in 2021, followed by a €107,833 loss in 2022. There was another loss in 2023 and the company is understood to have been heavily loss-making in 2024.
The company’s 53 staff were called to a meeting in January to be told that the business would cease trading immediately.
“Despite our best efforts to sustain operations, the business has become insolvent and is no longer viable in its current form,” the directors said.
