Sir Peter Jackson has long held plans to build a movie museum in the capital. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Sir Peter Jackson’s long-rumoured movie museum plans appear to be gaining traction, with representatives holding talks with the Wellington City Council over the project.
Mayor Andrew Little and council officials met with Jackson’s team late last year in what a council spokesman described as a “general relationship meeting”.
“It wasn’t a meeting specifically about the movie museum, although that was one of the projects discussed,” the spokesman said.
Since then, further discussions have taken place between the council’s city development team and Jackson’s people, understood to relate specifically to his plans for a museum at his 2.7ha Lyall Bay site.
The Herald understands a resource consent application is being prepared for the development, and is expected to be lodged soon.
In 2024, Jackson and his partner Dame Fran Walsh spent $105 million buying up properties to assemble the sizable plot near the city’s airport, under the company LB HC, thought to mean Lyall Bay Holding Company.
The site, which runs across two blocks, is now understood to be the site of the billionaire couple’s planned movie museum.
The venture has been described as Wellington’s worst-kept secret, but many are apprehensive to speak about it after the scrapping of earlier plans for the museum to be housed in the Tākina convention and exhibition centre, which failed in 2018.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the filmmaker’s business Wingnut Group confirmed representatives had met with council officials to discuss the “processes and requirements for potential long-term development initiatives in Wellington”, but would not elaborate.
The plan to include the museum as part of the convention centre was killed after Jackson and the council “mutually agreed to part ways”.
That project was being undertaken through the company The Movie Museum Limited (TMML), owned by Jackson, Walsh, and Wētā Workshop’s Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger.
At the time, the museum was pitched as an iconic tourist attraction which would be envied by other cities and featuring one of the world’s most valuable collections of Hollywood memorabilia, including the original car from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Charlie Chaplin’s cane, council documents said.
The filmmaker is said to hold warehouses full of prized collections of film props, sets, and costumes.
At the time, it was expected the museum would attract 350,000 visitors annually, create 258 jobs, and generate $28.2m in new spending each year.
But negotiations between the council and TMML turned sour, and the plan was canned.
TMML accused the council of “attempting to sabotage the project”, while then-mayor Justin Lester said the council “tried really, really hard”, but other parties took too long to finalise plans.
Jackson had reportedly earlier looked at the possibility of building the movie museum at Shelly Bay, but the idea fell flat around 2012.
A movie museum is not the only large-scale development the couple are working on.
In 2023, the pair purchased land at Shelly Bay to restore its “natural beauty” and stop a controversial $500m housing development.
Works are underway at the Shelly Bay property to build a smaller museum and exhibition space, according to resource consent documents.
As part of that work, popular cafe The Chocolate Fish was forced to close, officially shutting its doors last month after 15 years at the bay.
Jackson is also working on a large development near his film studios in Miramar, made up of a vet hospital, animal quarantine centre, residential units, and a large storage facility.
The Herald reported in 2023 that Jackson’s property portfolio had grown to an estimated $350m, including several lots on the Miramar Peninsula, warehouses in Upper Hutt, rural residences in Masterton, the Roxy cinema and Bats theatre in Wellington, and an $8.5m Queenstown holiday home and estate.
Since then, his mega-portfolio has continued to expand, most recently with the addition of the site of a local school.
Jackson’s property moves also caught the attention of Miramar Peninsula locals later in the year when he demolished a 1910s waterfront home valued at $2.5m to develop a garden for the property he owns next door.
He and Walsh ranked fifth on the NBR Rich List in 2025 with a reported net worth of $2.6 billion.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.