Weta FX Chief: Studios Won't Touch VFX Vendors That Lack an AI Strategy

The standoff is over. Daniel Seah, chief executive of Weta FX — the visual effects house behind “Avatar” and “The Lord of the Rings” — told reporters in Taipei on Friday that Hollywood's biggest buyers have reversed course on generative AI, and now want proof of an AI plan before they hand out work. Weta's clients are mainly the Big Four studios and the streaming platforms, he said.

The timeline is stark. Early last year, Seah said, studio legal departments made clear there was no scenario in which GenAI could touch their projects. By mid-year the door cracked open, with pre-approval required and only a handful of vendors allowed. Around the turn of the year, clients started asking how much money AI could save them. Since the third quarter of this year, the message has hardened into something close to a condition of employment: no AI strategy, no meeting.

The shift pushed Weta to find partners who could move faster than its own client restrictions allowed. It has spent roughly six months working with Taiwanese animation and VFX outfit Moonshine Studio, which Seah said has been free to sprint ahead because it isn't bound by the same studio rules. He credited Taiwan's government with treating AI as a national priority on the back of its semiconductor industry.

Seah was quick to swat down the obvious worry. Weta, he said, has no plans to swap artists or staff for algorithms — the aim is to enhance workflows, not hollow out crews. Chief technology officer Kimball Thurston said the company has been building its own models for reshaping and recreating worlds, deliberately not the ChatGPT variety. Work with Moonshine will likely concentrate on the artist-facing layer, what the AI world calls the harness — a term Thurston called the worst possible choice. The target is a tool that lets people refine stories across long-form timelines, not just 20-second clips.

Weta does lean on outside video models including Kling AI and ByteDance's Seedance where clients allow it. Thurston's take: “You kind of have to,” adding that not every studio permits it, but the models arrived and wiped out a chunk of the competition. Security rules mean those models have to be hosted outside China, which he said is workable now that ByteDance operates globally.

Under the new deal, TAICCA and Taiwan's Ministry of Culture will scout young talent and introduce them to Weta, which may offer internships in Wellington, Melbourne and Vancouver. Seah said the company is also likely to open a representative office in London. Thurston noted a Taiwan contingent already works at Weta in Wellington. TAICCA chair Sue Wang called it the biggest content-industry deal Taiwan has struck, framing it as a jump from hardware into software. Weta has no footprint on the island yet, but Seah pitched it as the ideal launchpad for Asia — three to four hours by air from Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea, with government backing and a deep bench of engineers and storytellers. Thurston said talks have also touched Thailand and Korea, plus immersive experiences possibly via Singapore. He was less diplomatic about power: Weta won a Southern Hemisphere data center design award for a water-free, more efficient cooling system, and he called the rush to build gas turbines for data centers bad engineering. VFX supervisor Sheldon Stopsack said the new tools have to slot into the existing pipeline, motion capture included, so filmmakers keep final creative control. As Thurston put it, audiences still come to watch the star perform — even when that star is an ape or a Na'vi.