Unity, the company behind the popular real-time game engine of the same name, has purchased Weta Digital for $1.625 billion. This is the renowned, New Zealand-based VFX house that was behind the Oscar-winning effects on hit film franchises such as The Lord of the Rings and James Cameron’s Avatar. Weta Digital was co-founded by director Peter Jackson.
From the Unity blog:
Today, Unity announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Weta Digital, specifically its artist tools, core pipeline, intellectual property, and award-winning engineering talent. The Academy Award-Winning VFX service teams of Weta Digital will continue as a standalone entity known as WetaFX and will become Unity’s largest customer in the Media and Entertainment space. By combining the industry leading VFX tools and technical talent from the incredible team at Weta, plus the deep development and real-time knowledge within Unity, we aim to deliver tools to unlock the full potential of the metaverse.
“Weta Digital’s tools created unlimited possibilities for us to bring to life the worlds and creatures that originally lived in our imaginations,” said Sir Peter Jackson, Chairman & Co-Founder, 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. Offering aspiring creatives access to Weta Digital’s technology will be nothing short of game changing and Unity is just the company to bring this vision to life.”
Sources: Unity, Weta Digital