Weta Creates Durotan for London’s Madame Tussauds

Workshop Brings Warcraft Figures To Life

♦Weta worked on Warcraft: The Beginning but they also brought Orc Durotan to life for London’s Madame Tussauds attraction. They captured it all on video so here it is…

Madame Tussauds newest experience features Durotan and Lothar statues from Legendary’s Warcraft: The Beginning, made by the crew here at the Workshop. They’re unsettlingly realistic for something so entirely fantastical! If you’re in London, drop in and check them out… http://www.madametussauds.com

Weta Workshop is a special effects and prop company based in Miramar, New Zealand, producing effects for television and film.

Founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger as RT Effects, Weta Workshop has produced creatures and makeup effects for the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess and effects for films such as Meet the Feebles and Heavenly Creatures. A digital division, Weta Digital, was formed in 1993.

Weta Workshop’s output came to worldwide prominence with director Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, producing sets, costumes, armour, weapons, creatures and miniatures. It supported the creation of Reclaiming the Blade (2009), a documentary film on stage combat, historical European and Asian swordsmanship. The company also worked on The Hobbit trilogy, the reboot of Planet of The Apes and many other big budget Hollywood movies over the past few years.

The company name comes from the weta, “New Zealand’s coolest little monster, a bizarre and prickly prehistoric cricket”.

Weta is now one of the most prominent and most important effects companies in the world.