'The Lord of the Rings' director sells his visual effects studio for $1.6 billion
"The
Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson is selling most of his visual
effects studio Weta Digital to Unity, which makes development software for
video games, for $1.6 billion.
The
cash-and-stock deal will see the American platform acquire Weta Digital's
"tools, pipeline, technology, and engineering talent," the companies
said in a statement on
Tuesday.
"This
acquisition is designed to put Weta's incredibly exclusive and sophisticated
visual effects tools into the hands of millions of creators and artists around
the world," the statement said.
Weta
Digital, which has six
Academy Awards and six BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts)
awards to its name, has built characters and worlds for a wide
variety of movies, including "Avatar," "Black Widow" and
"Lord of the Rings."
Meanwhile,
Unity is famous in
the gaming world for its development software, which studios
use to create hits like "Fall Guys," "Pokémon Go" and
"Call of Duty: Mobile."
"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,"
Jackson said in the statement. "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."
Weta
Digital's visual effects teams will continue to exist as a standalone entity
known as WetaFX, under Jackson's majority ownership, the statement added.
The
acquisition is expected to close during Unity's fourth quarter 2021.
The
companies also said that together they intend to shape the future of the
"metaverse" — a word that has become trendy in the technology world
since Facebook said
last month that the company would rebrand itself to focus on
virtual reality and augmented reality.
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