Christian Rivers

Christian Rivers is a New Zealand storyboard artist, visual effects supervisor, special effects technician, and director. He first met Peter Jackson as a 17-year-old, and storyboarded all of Jackson's films since Braindead. He made his directing debut in the film adaptation of Mortal Engines, and planning a remake of The Dam Busters, both produced by Peter Jackson. Career Rivers started his career by storyboarding Peter Jackson's Braindead right after finishing high school. He has since then continued to work for Jackson on storyboards, special effects, visual effects and splinter unit directing on The Hobbit trilogy. On King Kong, he directed the previz of the fight between King Kong and the three V-rexes. The sequence was used as the blueprint for the final version, giving Rivers a direction credit for the scene. For his work on King Kong, he won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Rivers went on directing his first short film, Feeder, and second unit directing on the 2016 remake of Pete's Dragon. Mortal Engines In December 2009, it was stated that the New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson intended to make a movie based on Mortal Engines. On 25 October 2016, Peter Jackson announced that WingNut Films has started work on producing a feature film to be directed by Christian Rivers. The script has been written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. The movie was financed by MRC and Universal, and shooting on Mortal Engines got underway in March 2017 in New Zealand. Producers Zane Weiner and Amanda Walker, who both worked on The Hobbit, will be spearheading the NZ based team, along with Deborah Forte in the US.