Wellington visual effects company Weta Digital continues to lure the big guns of Hollywood, with movie producer Jon Landau and Titanic director James Cameron singling out the capital as the place to film their latest project, Avatar. The big-budget sci-fi movie has been in production in Wellington since October, The Dominion Post reported today, with special effects work taking place alongside live-action filming featuring stars such as US screen veteran Sigourney Weaver. Landau, who oversaw films such as True Lies, Die Hard 2, Mrs Doubtfire, Aliens 3 and Last of the Mohicans, told the newspaper they chose Weta Digital and Wellington as they wanted the best visual effects crew they could get. Kiwi special effects reputation draws Hollywood high fliers
Day: December 6, 2007
TURNING A PHENOMENOM INTO BUSINESS SUCCESS: HOBBITON MOVIE SET AND FARM TOURS FIVE YEARS ON
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the opening of the farm gates to visitors at the Hobbiton Movie Set site.
The location, near Matamata, was Peter Jackson’s choice for the creation of the fictitious village ‘Hobbiton’ used in the filming of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Today Hobbiton Movie Set and Farm Tours, run by the family who own the land, is a thriving business and has proven the skeptics wrong. During the five years over 130 000 visitors have taken the tour, with a trebling of numbers between years one and two. International visitors make up 80% of the customers, with the strongest marketing coming from the UK. Continue reading “5 Years Gone By… Matamata ‘Hobbiton’ Set Still Popular”
Kristin Thompson, author of ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’, writes: I’ve posted the third and final part of my conversation with Lord of the Rings co-producer Rick Porras, from the New York Barnes & Noble signing back in September. This part continues the enjoyable question-and-answer session. Thanks again to Rick and to the fans who attended! Rick Porras Chat Part 2
Weta Productions’ debut television series, Jane and the Dragon, has been nominated for The Best Animated Television Production at the 35th Annual Annie Awards.
The Annie Awards are the industry’s oldest and most prestigious awards, and are considered an important industry benchmark and an annual predictor of the Academy Award for Animation. The winner of the most coveted and high profile Best Animated Feature Annie has gone on to claim the Oscar for animation every year but one since its inception. Continue reading “Weta TV series nominated for prestigious animation award”
Harry Potter’s magic was not enough to beat the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy in a new list of Britain’s favourite children’s book adaptation. The movies based on JRR Tolkien’s literary series of the same name, emerged the winner in the poll taken to find which book’s adaptation kids liked best. The movies based on JK Rowling’s books came next in line at the second spot. Third place on the list went to the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. ‘Lord of the Rings’ voted Britain’s Favourite Children’s Book Adaptation’
Meghan S. Rodberg, Online Community Manager for Turbine, Inc. writes: First, our servers came back up this morning with a patch to the game. Patch notes can be found here. Continue reading “Lord of the Rings: Online News”