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Marketing and creative company The Limners and Bards Limited has completed at least two of its five movies promised last year and is hoping that, starting in 2026, earnings from the romance flicks will keep shareholders in love with the company.
The production of movies is a new income stream for the company, which trades as The LAB. The company wants to be less reliant on advertising revenue, which remains its core business.
“Advertising is our core, and it will remain our core in the short term and the medium term, but we have to diversify. What we saw, especially in the six months that we were reported on, was a contraction in client spend due to the macroeconomics uncertainties or impacts,” said The LAB CEO Kimala Bennett.
“Entertainment, or the movies that we’ve moved into, takes a lot longer; we are looking at anywhere between 12 to 36 months” for production, Bennett said at the company’s annual general meeting.
“But that is our IP (intellectual property) that will continue to earn for us. So, we’re diversifying the revenue type, not just focusing on work for hire, which is very important,” she said.
The LAB made net profit of $20.6 million over six months ending April, down $49.4 million in the comparative half-year ending April 2024. Revenue rose 3.3 per cent to $460.2 million from $445.6 million.
The revenue growth was driven primarily by increased activity in The LAB’s production and media business segments. Media contributed $240.7 million, production $151.8 million, and agency revenue $67.5 million.
The company’s revenue diversification initiatives have been dubbed the ‘Five-in-25’ content plan, referring to the development of five movies, geographic expansion of its agency and production services, and the monetisation of existing financial and intellectual assets.
Bennett said one of the movies, Spices of Christmas, is scheduled for début during the holiday season in December, while another, Love Offside, is to be released for Valentine’s Day next February.
“We have invested heavily in content, and these strategically budgeted films, we’re looking to go for five in one year,” said Bennett. “It means that you have a broad range of films, which is much preferred by distributors and by streamers. We’re also leveraging a cultural appeal for the diaspora and international audiences,” she said.
Bennett said Love Offside was selected from among “thousands of projects” for its world premiere at the American Black Film Festival in Miami. She said interest in the film at the festival resulted in four solid offers on the table for its distribution.
“The offers are with our legal team, and we’re going to take our time, because distribution, like with anything else, is the key,” Bennett said.
The film stars Mike Merrill, who starred opposite Taraji P Henson in Tyler Perry’s psychological drama Straw, which went to the number one slot on Netflix.
Bennett detailed the opportunities for earnings from owning a movie, including release in theatres, rental on platforms such as Apple TV or Amazon, video-on-demand on platforms such as Netflix, advertising supported on streaming services like Tubi, and brand integration, otherwise referred to as product placements, where companies pay for their products to feature in movies.
English (US) ·