Michael broke his teeth as Financial Controller for Palace Productions working on such projects as Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves and The Crying Game, and Michael Caton-Jones' Scandal. In 1995 he produced This is the Sea starring Richard Harris and Gabriel Byrne for Overseas Film Group. He later produced Accelerator which was screened at Cannes and Montreal.
Grand Pictures was established in early 2000 and has produced the award-winning TV series Paths to Freedom and Fergus's Wedding with Michael as producer. Spin the Bottle, produced by Michael and based on the cult hero of Paths to Freedom, was a domestic box office hit, won a number of IFTAs and also won Best Feature at the Boston Irish Film Festival.
In 2006 Michael produced Puffball and in 2008 he produced The Race, an Irish/German co-production.
Some of Michael's other credits include an Irish-German co-production shot in Ireland starring Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie Sangster entitled Death of a Superhero which was sold by Bavaria Film International. Michael also executive produced Titanic – Blood and Steel, a co-production with the Italian company DAP. Michael worked on The Legend of Longwood, a co-production with Holland Harbour Productions of Rotterdam. This feature was directed by Lisa Mulcahy and was sold internationally by Global Screen.
In 2017 Grand Pictures was awarded €250,000 to make Dark Lies the Island, a feature film that will be shown on RTÉ One and also has support from the Irish Film Board. The script is by Kevin Barry and the film is based on his collection of short stories of the same name.
