Sir Peter Jackson sells New Zealand’s Lord of the Rings studio for $1.6 billion

The Weta Digital studio based in New Zealand has been sold to a US video game company

Sir Peter Jackson has sold the special effects studio behind Lord of the Rings, Avatar and Game of Thrones for more than $1.6bn (£1.18bn).

The Weta Digital studio based in New Zealand has been sold to a US video game company called Unity Software.

“Weta Digital’s tools created unlimited possibilities for us to bring to life the worlds and creatures that originally lived in our imaginations,” said Jackson, who is the chairman and co-founder of Weta Digital.

“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.”

Unity Software further revealed that the technology behind Weta’s work will now be used to “shape the future of the metaverse”.

“We are thrilled to democratise these industry-leading tools,” said John Riccitello, chief executive of Unity Software.

This news comes less than three months after Amazon announced that season two of Lord of the Rings series will be filmed in the UK instead of New Zealand.

According to The Guardian, Weta Digital’s visual special effects and animation teams will continue to exist as a standalone entity and will become Unity’s largest customer after the sale.