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Council chief financial officer Peter Gudsell said Auckland Film Studios’ sale was still underway but due to commercial sensitivity, he could notexpand further. A robust global process had been undertaken, he said.
“There have been some delays as the process essentially went on hold due to the international screenwriters and actors strike which required the full focus of potential buyers, but has now resumed. An outcome is likely to be known in the first half of this year,” Gudsell said.
Auckland Film Studios in West Auckland — still unsold.
The strike hit the film sector for about six months and ended in November.
In May 2022, a behind-closed-doors meeting of the council’s finance and performance committee ruled it would sell the Henderson property which had been granted $37.5 million only a year earlier for a big upgrade, funded by taxpayers and ratepayers.
At the time, the council’s economic development arm, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited (TAU), said the Government had contributed $30 million and the council $7.5m for two new stages to be developed at the site between Henderson Valley Rd and Railside Ave.
But a year later the council’s general manager of value for money, Ross Chirnside, said council involvement in studio infrastructure was never intended to be permanent.
Marketing wizards had hoped a new Lord of the Rings TV series would whip up fresh tourism and film industry dollars. Photo / Supplied
No buyers have emerged and title searches of the properties in Hickory Ave show they remain under council ownership.
Property experts said the timing was terrible, with so much paid to upgrade the buildings soon after advertised, just as the property market dipped. The housing market, for example, peaked in late 2021.
Former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern visited the film studios in October 2022, accompanied by ministers.
The studio property had been hit by fire a month before.
The 2.2ha property at 10 Hickory Ave, Henderson, was valued by the council at $34m in 2021.
Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited the Auckland Film Studios in Henderson in October 2022. Photo / Dean Purcell
The council wanted to sell the property to offset its $900m revenue hit from Covid, it announced in 2022.
The most recent major productions were Power Rangers 2022; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; Sweet Tooth (TV Pilot) 2021; Letter to the King (TV series) 2020; Fresh Eggs (TV series) 2019 and Avatar Way of Water 2019.
Projects filmed at the council-owned Auckland Film Studios include Whale Rider, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Chronicles of Narnia, Power Rangers and more.
It was initially privately owned then Waitākere City Council bought it when it hit financial difficulty, then the council took it over when Super City was created in 2010.
Tātaki Auckland Unlimited suppressed information on the studios’ sale in its November meeting report last year. The only information shown under that headline in the report was a note that the actors strike in the United States had been resolved.
All information from the TAU meeting in October was also redacted and the same in the early October meeting.
So whatever is happening — if anything — is being kept secret. Gudsell said the sales process was confidential “to protect commercial interests and maintain the integrity of the process”.
Auckland Film Studios' site plan in Henderson.
The latest TAU annual report cited the milestone “for our region’s thriving screen production industry, marked in December 2022, with the official opening of Te Pūtahi tahi — two new 2000sq m sound stages at council-owned Auckland Film Studios”.
“They have already attracted strong interest from domestic and international producers, achieved a Green Star 4-star ‘as built’ rating, and received a Property Council excellence award. The 18-month project was led by TAUL, and co-funded by central government ($30m) and council ($7.5m), with the stages expected to facilitate hundreds more high-skilled screen production jobs,” the report says.
One person close to the deal said last year’s writers strike in the US halted the process.
Striking actors Jennifer Leigh Warren (left) and Emily Kincaid demonstrate outside Netflix studios in October. Photo / AP
It’s unclear which agents have been advertising it for sale. The process is an expressions-of-interest campaign with the properties promoted as a going concern. That could mean property details in ads weren’t available to the public to see.
It is the council, not Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, that was handling the so-far unsuccessful sales process.
In September 2022, the world premiere of Amazon Studios’ Lord of the Rings – the Rings of Power streaming series put the spotlight on Auckland as a filming destination, TAU’s annual report notes.
Amazon Studios spent an estimated $650m on series one production in New Zealand, largely shot in Auckland studios and on location around the region with a 90 per cent local crew, comprising mainly Aucklanders, it says.
The glamour Lord of the Rings TV series moved production away from New Zealand in 2021, the Herald reporting at the time that the studios were a focal point for the West Auckland screen heartland where many of the region’s 4000 screen industry workers and 1800 supply companies were based.
Last year, NBR reported the studios remained unsold, despite Mayor Wayne Brown placing what it said was “severe pressure” on officials to quit the properties.
* Updated: an earlier version of this story mentioned Kumeu but that studio is privately owned and not part of the sale.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
