Ghost in the Shell an economic bonanza for Wellington

Ghost in the Shell provides an economic bonanza for Wellington

Turning Wellington into a stylised version of Hong Kong for Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures’ Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson, has paid big dividends for the city, with the film’s production pumping about US$60 million into the local economy.

The film will also showcase downtown Wellington - albeit disguised as another harbour city - on the international stage when it premieres on the red carpet in New York next Wednesday, March 29.

Ghost in the Shell was 90 per cent filmed in Wellington including the closure and remodelling of Victoria St to resemble futuristic Hong Kong. The five-day shutdown was the largest inner city filming ever done in New Zealand, and achieved when Kiwi film Pork Pie was also being filmed on the other side of the city.

Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency (WREDA) Business Growth and Innovation General Manager David Jones says the economic benefit for Wellington was far reaching, showing how important the screen sector is to the local economy.

“Wellingtonians might often hear a movie is being made in town, but probably don’t realise it means so much more than which cafe a famous actor has been spotted in. It means jobs, spending in local businesses and crucially, a chance to build Wellington’s reputation further as a hub for world-class screen production.

“Ghost in a Shell is no exception; it was an awesome production for our screen industry and our screen industry was a great fit for the production.”

Big ticket items for Ghost in the Shell included $7.1 million on accommodation, $2.3m on vehicle hire and $9.5m on art and costume materials, as well as smaller spends on items such as $440,000 to buy second hand vehicles, $750,000 on vehicle modifications and $340,000 on motor bike modifications.

Eight hundred individual New Zealand retailers - not on the film’s payroll - were used by cast and crew, and 720 domestic flights were booked, during the making of the movie.

The film had 777 crew, of which 718 were from New Zealand. The cast comprised of 48 actors, which included 30 Kiwis and 315 local extras.

Wellington’s Weta Workshop was an integral part of the film’s animatronics, props and set dressing – generating more than 2,000 designs for the film. This included the creation of 13 character Geisha including 25 full Geisha masks and wigs (including some with animatronics) and six wax “exploding” heads. In total they worked on the project for an estimated 71,000 hours (the equivalent of 8,875 eight-hour working days).

Wellington’s screen sector generated revenue of $586 million (in the year to the end of March 2015), according to the latest data from Statistics New Zealand.

Kiwis will be amongst the first in the world to see Ghost in the Shell when it goes on general release in New Zealand on 30 March, and worldwide on 31 March.

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Notes to editors:

About Ghost in the Shell and its filming in Wellington

In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world’s most dangerous criminals. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people’s minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen. She will stop at nothing to recover her past, find out who did this to her and stop them before they do it to others. Based on the internationally acclaimed Japanese Manga – The Ghost in the Shell.

During her time in the capital, Johansson was taken with Wellington’s “friendly and warm” people, “beautiful harbour”, and “outdoorsy vibe” that allowed her to walk by the water and in the bush.

“It beats a lot of other cities that I have shot in.”

Supervising Art Director Richard Johnson praised the city for allowing two blocks of Victoria St to be shut down for filming.

“It’s not every city in the world that will say okay, here's two blocks, it's yours, shut it down… I mean they went to the extent of diverting the buses, turning off the power above us, letting us control the street lighting, letting us control the building lighting, you know. Exceptionally helpfully, exceptionally.”

Executive producer Jeffery Silver said there were a number of factors that went into the choice of New Zealand, particularly Wellington, to the making of Ghost in the Shell.

“First of all, the phenomenal crew here, I can’t emphasize that enough, they really have very versatile, talented, gung ho-spirited group of filmmakers. I think they could wear different hats and take different roles, basically at the heart of it they’re filmmakers which I really appreciate.

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