Wellington has overtaken Auckland as the city which makes the most money from feature films, but Auckland Mayor John Banks says he has no doubt his city will regain the claim to being the country's movie capital.
A Statistics New Zealand release today showed revenue from feature film production last year in Wellington increased by 70 percent to $429 million, while revenue for feature films in Auckland fell 42 percent to $220m.
The same statistics show that Auckland dominated television production and continued to make up the majority of screen industry revenue overall, with $2.2b out of $2.8b.
"Because the bulk of New Zealand's television production occurs in Auckland, it has dominated total screen production figures to-date but today's data provides a much needed breakdown between regional film and television production," Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive Charles Finny said.
"The Wellington screen industry has become an important source of foreign exchange for New Zealand and is providing an increasing number of local jobs."
Mr Banks said he had no doubt that the drop in feature film revenue for Auckland occurred as one one of the downsides of the global recession.
He said he did not want to take anything away from Wellington's success but said Auckland had the infrastructure in place to outgrow the capital's film industry.
"The economic infrastructure is in place for us to double the size of the film industry over the next five to seven years," he said.
There was "no doubt at all" that Auckland would usurp Wellington as the nation's film capital within ten years.
NZPA