Film’s Future in Good Hands

Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern paid Peter Jackson a visit at his Miramar studios on a recent trip to NZ. The pair discussed their favourite movies, the future of special effects and the role of studios in filmmaking at the “one-of-a-kind cauldron of creativity” that is Weta Workshop. Morgenstern’s tour of the facility included meeting Jackson’s business partner Richard Taylor and Weta Digital effects maestro Joe Letteri, and seeing Jackson’s custom-built screening room – designed as a visual homage to the movie palaces of his childhood. In talking with Jackson, writes Morgenstern, “[you] get the feeling anything is possible in motion pictures, and that his part of the movies’ future is in good hands”.