Two dozen Irish producers travelled to Los Angeles on a recent Irish Film Board trade mission. Here is a selection of projects some of those producers were representing.
John Rice, Jam Media
He is hoping to make a feature film expanding on the award-winning short, Badly Drawn Roy, which blends animation and live action. Roy is an animated character born into a "live action" family, but he is badly drawn. Roy goes to Hollywood in search of fame, fortune and corrective surgery. "We've always planned it as a feature film," Rice says, adding that the BBC has commissioned a 13-part series of half-hour episodes.
Martha O'Neill, Wildfire Films
Prolific producer Martha O'Neill had meetings on two feature films. Bridget Cleary is a thriller dramatising the story of the eponymous 26-year-old woman whose body was found burned and buried in the Tipperary village of Ballyvadlea in 1895. Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre, 2006) and Michael Fassbender (300) will star in the film, which was written by Anne-Marie Casey and will be directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan.
Tony award-winning director Garry Hynes will make her film debut with Wildfire's production of John B Keane's celebrated play, The Year of the Hiker, which was adapted by Adam Rynne.
Tim Palmer, Ignition Film Productions
Tim Palmer plans to shoot his next film, A Kiss for Justin, in New York in June. Written by Barry Devlin and to be directed by Maurice Linnane, it follows a 21-year-old Irishwoman sent to New York for a TV reality show. Her mission is to kiss Justin Timberlake.
Gabriel Byrne is adapting and planning to direct a feature film based on Jennifer Johnson's novel, Two Moons, which deals with three generations of women, and an angel. "It's the best first draft I've ever read," says Palmer.
Ignition is co-producing The Straits with two other Irish companies, Bandit Films and Zanzibar Films. Omar Sharif will feature in this thriller on human trafficking in Morocco and Spain, with Johnny Gogan directing.
Paul Donovan/Michael Garland/ Ailish McElmeel, Grand Pictures
The most intriguing of Grand's projects is The Colleen and the Cowboy, a coming-of-age story set against the filming of The Quiet Man in 1951. Author Thomas Kilroy has written the screenplay, which will be directed by Paul Quinn (This is My Father).
In complete contrast is the Flann O'Brien adaptation Dead Spit of Kelly, a dark comedy in which a taxidermist kills his cruel employer and dons the dead man's skin to lead a double life. The screenplay is by Johnny Ferguson, who scripted Gangster No 1.