Weta FX to Invest in Taiwan's Moonshine Studio Under AI Pact

By Elena Vasquez

Weta FX, the New Zealand visual effects company behind "The Lord of the Rings" and "Avatar," will invest in Taiwanese animation and VFX outfit Moonshine Studio. The companies disclosed no figure. The deal, signed on Friday at Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei, anchors a broader partnership with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) that aims to make Taiwan an AI hub for Asia's content industries.

Weta FX CEO Daniel Seah and TAICCA chair Sue Wang signed a memorandum of understanding at the ceremony. Taiwan's Minister of Culture Li Yuan attended.

What does the pact cover?

Seah said the partnership has three parts:

• Investment in Moonshine Studio, founded by Lin Chia-chi. Seah said this component has been around six months in the making.
• A technology platform that will invest in Taiwanese film and TV projects and use Weta FX's global reach to bring them to wider audiences.
• A talent program, the part Seah said he values most, that will allow Taiwanese filmmakers — particularly young ones — to come to Weta FX for exchanges and internships, and potentially to work there in the future.

"On the AI road, nobody is really far, far ahead," Seah said. "We all have to venture into this tech-filled AI world together. That's why, while investing in Taiwan, we're investing in technology."

Who is Daniel Seah?

Seah has spent close to 16 years as a VFX chief executive. That includes 14 years running Digital Domain, the company co-founded by James Cameron. He moved to Peter Jackson's Weta FX nearly two years ago. Li noted that Seah was born in Malaysia and grew up in Yonghe district, in New Taipei, before working in China and Hong Kong.

Seah put Weta FX's local weight in figures. Its staff alone, he said, make up around 2% of the population of Wellington, New Zealand's capital.

"Over the past 30 years, Weta turned Wellington from a political capital into such an important global production base," Seah said. "We think Taiwan has even more of that opportunity."

The comparison frames the ambition: if a VFX house can reshape one capital city over three decades, Weta FX sees Taiwan as capable of a larger version of that transformation.

How does TAICCA rate Moonshine?

Wang ranked Moonshine's team first among Taiwan's VFX houses. "Every time we met the Moonshine team, my only worry was: Can you make money like this? How long can you keep going?" she said. Wang added that the team "deserves to be put to better use, and seen by more people."

Wang also thanked Taiwan's National Development Fund for its support.

What did the culture minister say?

Li summed up the day in an eight-character Chinese phrase: "Daniel Seah comes home, dreams come true." The phrase plays on Moonshine's Chinese name, which means "dream." He said AI and cultural technology will be among the Ministry of Culture's priorities for the next four years.

Li brought his own history to the signing. He joined Wang Film Productions at 37, hoping to make original animation, and gave up two to three years later. "I thought maybe this dream would take 20 or 30 years to come true," he said. "I didn't expect that after waiting so long, I would at least see it come true with my own eyes."

Also present were TAICCA president Erica Wang and three Weta FX executives: chief technology officer Kimball Thurston, VFX supervisor Sean Noel Walker and R&D head Andrew Moffat.

With Weta FX's capital, platform and talent pipeline now tied to a four-year government priority, Taiwan's VFX sector has a concrete test case for whether the "dream" can scale into a regional AI production base.