Wētā Workshop

Wētā Workshop World-class design and manufacture for films, games, collectibles, and attractions. NZ tourist destination, games studio and collectibles company.
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Academy Award-winning design & effects manufacturing facility servicing the world's creative industries.

A special, unforgettable night at the New Zealand premiere of James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash in Te Whanganui-a-Tar...
13/12/2025

A special, unforgettable night at the New Zealand premiere of James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, celebrating our talented crew and the many incredible people who helped bring to life this cinematic achievement 🔥

Venture back (by boat!) to Peter Jackson’s , which celebrates its 20th anniversary today.In addition to concept design,...
12/12/2025

Venture back (by boat!) to Peter Jackson’s , which celebrates its 20th anniversary today.

In addition to concept design, costumes, props, weapons and specialty makeup effects for the 2005 blockbuster, we built a miniature Venture ship, a replica of a real-life steamer. Our team rigged this miniature with lights within each cabin, its rooms filled with the smallest of details.

To simulate this vessel’s perilous journey, the model was placed on a motion control rig to sway back and forth, its movement that of a ship in treacherous sea.

As Peter Jackson’s 2005 monster movie celebrates its 20th anniversary today, discover some of the concept art that hel...
12/12/2025

As Peter Jackson’s 2005 monster movie celebrates its 20th anniversary today, discover some of the concept art that helped bring to life this richly layered world.

Our design team produced an extraordinary amount of artwork to visualise Skull Island and its inhabitants (giant primate included), imagining its frightening creatures, its ecosystems and its evolutionary history.

Artists: Gus Hunter, Gino Acevedo, Christian Pearce, Greg Broadmore

12/12/2025

It’s Wētā Workshop Unleashed’s fifth birthday! 🎂

Whether you stepped into our ideas vault and survived our Screamery (and Jeff’s jokes), came along to our Auckland Wētā Cave, poured an abundance of creativity into one of our many workshops, hosted a horde of humans as a guide, or supported us online: from the very depths of our fake-blood-filled heart, thank you.

Your votes are in, and the Númenórean Soldier took the crown 🏆Now, four concepts are up for selection, and you get the f...
11/12/2025

Your votes are in, and the Númenórean Soldier took the crown 🏆

Now, four concepts are up for selection, and you get the final say on how this Limited Edition statue will look.

Vote now and make your mark on collectibles history: https://email.wetanz.co.nz/p/6XI1-EMJ/collectors-choice-lep

In the early 2000s, we had the great joy of walking through the wardrobe into Narnia for Director Andrew Adamson’s cinem...
08/12/2025

In the early 2000s, we had the great joy of walking through the wardrobe into Narnia for Director Andrew Adamson’s cinematic adaption of the C.S. Lewis classic, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which celebrates its 20th anniversary today.

Before crafting armour, weapons and specialty props for this fantasy film, our team undertook some initial conceptual work to help shape this enchanting world.

Our concept artists broadly explored Narnia’s colour and atmosphere, its grand vistas and far-reaching expanses; contributed dozens of illustrations of its expressive animals; visualised the White Witch and her crystalline, shard-like castle; conceptualised early studies for the great battle, which imagined how the legions of creatures might capitalise on the strengths of their members; and looked for ways to depict well-known mythological creatures, including Minotaurs, Centaurs and the faun, Mr Tumnus, with realistic, plausible biologies.

Artists: Gus Hunter, Daniel Falconer, Stephen Crowe, Greg Broadmore, Paul Tobin

08/12/2025

Our latest Classic Series statue, Legolas, is available now!

As an added bonus, 800 will receive a 1:4 scale Knives of Legolas prop replica. 664 for the first pre-orders with us online, the rest available from participating retailers.

Pre-order now: https://www.wetanz.com/legolas-classic-with-knives

Experience the deadly grace of our new Legolas Classic Series statue.For the swiftest, 800 pieces include a free 1:4 Kni...
07/12/2025

Experience the deadly grace of our new Legolas Classic Series statue.

For the swiftest, 800 pieces include a free 1:4 Knives of Legolas: 664 online pre-orders, the rest at the Wētā Cave and other select retailers.

Don't miss out; pre-orders open in less than 24 hours.
Preview now at: https://www.wetanz.com/legolas-classic-with-knives

06/12/2025

Every journey into the World of WearableArt (WOW) begins differently.

Whether you’re an emerging designer, a costume extraordinaire or you began your career as an Orc, like Wētā Workshop Costume Supervisor Cathy ‘Tree’ Harris — winner of several awards in the annual New Zealand design competition including the first-ever Wētā Workshop Award — now’s your chance to express your creativity and take a place on the WOW stage.

Entries for the 2026 World of WearableArt Competition are open.

For more information, visit worldofwearableart.com.

04/12/2025

If you’re squeamish, you may want to look away. But for those comfortable with more than a little bit of (fake) blood, what better way to enjoy today than with a violent plant-like creature munching on the ever-excellent Luke Hawker?

For this creature known as the Orchid in the FX series Alien Earth, created by Noah Hawley, we fabricated several different practical effects. The first was a static prop in a closed position, featuring a flexible stem and a poseable, detachable lure (important for a plant that uses its stamen to attract its prey). The second featured a membrane and an internal blood rig (for reasons just as important but much more terrifying).

Alien: Earth is streaming now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus.

In the FX series Alien Earth, we’re introduced to a smorgasbord of lethal organisms each more terrifying than the last, ...
03/12/2025

In the FX series Alien Earth, we’re introduced to a smorgasbord of lethal organisms each more terrifying than the last, including the Orchid.

Hanging like a perfectly nice if dauntingly large subtropical plant, the Orchid is a carnivorous plant-like creature that originated on a planet with a humid environment and, like the show’s other aliens, is incredibly dangerous.

“We went through a few different ideas for the Orchid,” says Wētā Workshop Art Director Vaughan Flanagan on working with creator Noah Hawley. “Initially, this was going to be something that was more airborne, but the final design is a cross between a Venus fly trap and an umbrella. Noah liked the idea that there would be this alien plant-like thing that people underestimated until the last possible moment, when it opened to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth.”

Alien: Earth is streaming now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus.

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1 Weka Street
Wellington
6022

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+6449094000

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We make cool stuff!

Weta Workshop is a five-time Academy Award®-winning concept design studio and physical effects manufacturing facility that services the world’s entertainment and creative industries. For over 20 years, we have applied our creativity and craftsmanship to blockbuster films and hit television series including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit motion picture trilogies, Blade Runner 2049, Saban’s Power Rangers, King Kong, Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, District 9, Elysium, Thunderbirds Are Go, and Ghost in the Shell.

In additional to our film and television projects, we’re also an international tourist destination, producer of consumer products from Middle-earth (and far beyond), behind-the-scenes and media production facility, and creator of public sculptures and immersive exhibition experiences like the record-breaking Gallipoli: The scale of our war, at New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa. Creativity, innovation, and authenticity are the threads that tie this diverse mix of offerings into one fantastical whole.

On March 19, 2018, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern officially opened our brand new, world-leading mixed reality facility: Weta Gameshop. Together with groundbreaking Florida technology company Magic Leap, we’re forging new frontiers in mixed reality as we create Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders for Magic Leap’s spatial computing platform.

From humble beginnings in the back room of their flat, co-founders Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger have built Weta Workshop into what it is today. Richard, Tania, and the wider Weta Workshop crew regularly go on the road to meet film buffs and lovers of cool stuff worldwide!