News

The new strategic partnership between ARRI and The HELM looks on paper like a simple integration deal. In practice, it might be one of the most important moves in ARRI’s modern history. It connects ARRI’s premium cinema heritage with a…

James Cameron’s third instalment of the hugely successful Avatar franchise may well be his last. The Hollywood director shared the news with the Herald ahead of the Avatar: Fire and Ash premiere at Embassy Theatre in Wellington yesterday. “I can’t even tell…

Searchlight Pictures has set Taika Waititi to direct Barn 8, an adaptation of the satirical novel by Deb Olin Unferth. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law creator Jessica Gao will write the script. Gotham Group’s Eric Robinson and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein brought in…

Disney has put its chips in on AI. The Hollywood giant has signed a major deal with OpenAI, investing $1B in the artificial intelligence giant and handing over characters from Frozen and Star Wars to generative AI video app Sora.…

In the last year the Avatar franchise has spent more than $125 million, most of it in Wellington. On Saturday, Courtenay Pl will host stars and adoring public for the Australasian opening of Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third movie…

International and German streaming and VoD platforms have agreed to invest a massive NZ$27.5 billion into German screen production over the next five years, a deal that underscores just how small New Zealand’s ambitions are by comparison. The voluntary agreement…

James Cameron revealed in an interview with Discussing Film that he received pushback from the studio when he decided to expand the number of “Avatar” sequels from three films to four. After the record-breaking success of the original “Avatar” in…

There was a time, of course, when Sir Peter Jackson wasn’t one of the most famous directors on the planet. That time is some point prior to the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,…

Script to Screen is excited to announce that the Big Screen Symposium will be back on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th July 2026. This unique screen industry event will be returning to the beautiful Te Pūtahi Mātauranga/ The Faculty of…

This story was originally published on The Spinoff. Gender: Female. Age: 26. Ethnicity: European/Polynesian. Role: Film/TV production contractor. Salary/income/assets: Approximately $60,000 solo income (this varies a lot due to the nature of contracting), or $160k combined household income. Earlier this year my partner and I…

Director Murray Reece experiments with unscripted drama in Time Out, part of the short documentary slot Survey. Featuring Blerta’s Geoff Murphy and Bruno Lawrence, it blurs fact and fiction; Lawrence won Best Actor at the 1971 Feltex Awards.…

Tom Paton, creator of the AI-animated feature film Where the Robots Grow, launched the AI-generated series Non-Player Combat through AiMation Studios in the United Kingdom. The series places six photorealistic AI contestants on a remote island for a deadly survival competition, where outcomes…