Lord of the Rings Director Peter Jackson Sold His Visual Effects Company
We all remember what kind of impact the legendary Lord of the Rings trilogy had on modern Hollywood back in the early 2000s. Director Peter Jackson has brought us probably the best fantasy adventure franchise ever created.
Original Lord of the Rings trilogy was followed by solid, although not so successful trilogy Hobbit, and next year we are expecting an epic TV show on Amazon Prime Video.
It is known that all the previous Lord of the Rings projects were filmed in New Zealand, where many fans of the franchise want to go on a tour to visit all the stunning locations where the movies were filmed. According to tourism.net.nz, since 2004, an average of 47 thousand international visitors a year have visited the film locations.
But, as times are changing, so does the filming locations. Although the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show was filmed in New Zealand as well, last summer it was reported that the production will move next year to the UK, which can be described as the end of one very long tradition. Elijah Wood, who played Frodo Baggins in the original trilogy, shared his disagreement on Twitter only with facepalm emoji.
Now, three months since that first big change, The Guardian is reporting that Peter Jackson, the director of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy and the most deserving person for bringing Tolkien’s epic novels to the big screens, decided to sell Weta Digital – a digital visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand – for $1.63 billion.
Jackson co-founded the company in 1993 with Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk. Although Lord of the Rings is their most known project, Weta Digital also worked on other big projects, including Peter Jackson’s King Kong, X-Men: The Last Stand, James Cameron’s Avatar, The Avengers, Man of Steel, The Hobbit trilogy (of course), Game of Thrones, Furious 7, Batman V Superman, Aquaman, Avengers: Endgame, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and many other projects primarily known for the amazing visual effects. They also worked on the upcoming TV shows; Disney’s Hawkeye and HBOMax’s Peacemaker
“Weta Digital’s tools created unlimited possibilities for us to bring to life the worlds and creatures that originally lived in our imaginations. Together, Unity and Weta Digital can create a pathway for any artist, from any industry, to be able to leverage these incredibly creative and powerful tools.”
Peter Jackson, The Guardian