The industry that Avatar built in Aotearoa

Sunday, 14 December 2025

“It sets an example for the world of excellence ‒ industry excellence.”

That’s Joy Keene, executive director of the NZ Game Developers Association, speaking about the Avatar franchise’s impact on Aotearoa’s creative tech sector.

As the dust settles on one of Wellington’s largest film premieres in recent history with Avatar: Fire and Ash, those who are a part of screen and adjacent industries are taking a moment to reflect on how the film series has allowed our country’s creative tech workers to operate at the very top of the global visual effects (VFX) game for the best part of two decades.

Nicky Muir, a VFX producer at Wellington-based Wētā FX, the studio that did the VFX for all three films, said the franchise gave local artists the opportunity to push the boundaries of what was possible, creatively speaking: from performance capture to muscle movement realism to rendering to water or fire simulation.

Cameron’s high and exacting standards as a film-maker meant artists were forced to invent new tools and technology to meet demands ‒ something that helped grow skills and capability within our creative workforce.

“I’m a bit biased, obviously, but the visuals are incredible, and they are a spectacle. That’s what James Cameron creates, is spectacles,” Muir, who’s worked at the organisation for 20 years, told the Sunday Star-Times.

Having a break in between Avatar: The Way of Water and Fire and Ash allowed for supervisors to tweak tools that weren’t working perfectly. Artists working primarily out of Wellington built the world of Pandora from scratch using frontier technology ‒ and then continued to build on that.

That compounded, continuous knowledge has helped the sector become more resilient, diversified and able to deliver work across a range of budgets and genres, said Annie Murray, chief executive of the NZ Film Commission.

Muir, who worked on all three films, recalled an early push for Wētā artists to get people to “believe the world” of fantastical, surreal Pandora. That initial challenge grew as Cameron’s scope and vision widened with each subsequent sequel.

Beyond that, the franchise has helped to establish new industry ecosystems: both in terms of physical infrastructure, and in terms of the deep collaboration that’s unfolded between local vendors and global studios.

According to regional economic development agency WellingtonNZ, the franchise contributed $1.1 billion to the New Zealand economy over the last eight years alone.

The series has also provided longevity for workers. Many artists who came to Aotearoa to work on the franchise on a contract went on to become residents and citizens in their own right, choosing to start their families here and even create their own businesses and IP.

While Cameron’s touted fourth and fifth instalments of the film series are yet to begin post-production (only part of the filming of Avatar 4 is complete), there is still uncertainty around exactly where the films will be made.

Muir says in spite of that, after finishing Fire and Ash, “I had so many of the crew say to me, ‘can we just start 4 now?’

“We’ve had three films to build this relationship with this client. We are all one team, all working together trying to make something really cool that people can enjoy. So I think in the next five years, ideally 4 and 5 happen, and we are on it, and the crew get to come back and push technology as far as possible and see the characters come to life.”

For the artists at Wētā FX, which has “so much other work coming in”, Muir said it is not about the glamour ‒ it is about working at the cutting edge: “They want to be part of the greatest thing that might come out next.”

Working alongside the industry’s best has made for many pinch-me moments.

“How am I here? How do I get to be here?,” Muir recalls thinking on the set of the first Avatar, for which she was actor Sigourney Weaver’s stand-in.

“You’re sitting in rooms with people like Joe Letteri and Eric Saindon and James Cameron, and you’re hearing them talk about how we’re going to do something, and the the science behind all of it. … You sit there and you go, ‘I feel very privileged to be in this room’.”

But our future also depends on stability. While New Zealand hosts globally exceptional talent, retaining those workers hangs on long-term certainty around incentives, funding and policy.

Recent tweaks to Aotearoa’s screen rebates have been welcomed ‒ but the Government needs to stay ahead of the game if it wants New Zealand to continue to be competitive in the increasingly aggressive world market, multiple industry representatives told the Star-Times.

Tanya Black, the manager of Screen Wellington, says the Avatar franchise built off the success of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, in cementing our screen industry’s global reputation.

“They really are a product that we have created here, and it just happens to be for an international studio. But it is very much a New Zealand-stamped production,” Black said.

“There’s been so much innovation that has come out of it, and we were already quite far down that path. … Sir Richard [Taylor] and Peter Jackson sort of started that spark, and it’s just escalated from there exponentially. So we’re at a place now where there’s not a lot of other centres that can match us for that convergence of creativity and tech.”

For Wellington specifically, Black describes the Avatar franchise as a juggernaut, but believes the industry can continue to capitalise on its success by adopting a “New Zealand Inc”-type approach, in which different creative aspects of any given project can happen across different parts of the country.

The franchise has also undoubtedly sparked broader digital growth across disciplines including tech, VFX, gaming and AI. This can be seen in the boom of New Zealand’s game development workforce. Wellington accounts for 34% of the national gaming industry, which recorded $759m in pre-tax income for the 2024/5 year ‒ an increase of almost 39% on the year before.

Despite this, Black said there was still a persisting, unhelpful attitude that gaming was not a real career. Part of this was because creative technology industries did not have the same obvious visual vibrancy as traditional on-location film production.

But, while you might not see Gandalf having a coffee in Wellington any more, it was entirely possible to be in line next to the person who’s designing and animating the entire world said character may live in.

Joy Keene said the Avatar series had brought a spotlight to New Zealand and to Wellington. “[It] solidifies internationally that we’re bloody good at this stuff,” she said.

Murray agreed, saying New Zealand consistently delivers world-class creative outcomes. “What sets us apart is creative vision, precision, and the ability to execute at scale.”

She said the next phase would be about embracing change, while also protecting what makes us unique.

“Technologies like AI will reshape workflows and create new roles, but they also raise big questions about creativity and cultural integrity. Our goal is a sustainable, future-proofed screen ecosystem where technology serves people, and New Zealand stories remain authentic and trusted in a rapidly evolving digital age,” Murray said.

Muir said above all else, it was pretty incredible that Wellington and New Zealand were trusted with such huge projects like Avatar.

“That is a credit to a lot of people who’ve done the work at Wētā across the years, and have built that trust. … It’s such an opportunity for New Zealanders to have this here, and to be able to get into this [industry] and know that they can do it from home. It’s pretty special.”

– Avatar: Fire and Ash is in NZ cinemas from December 18.