Wellington is estimated to have earned $450 million from film companies in the year to March 31, $400 million more than last year.
The amount spent on Peter Jackson's United States-financed The Lord of the Rings contributed most to the record figure, although exact figures are unknown.
Wellington City Council's film coordinator, Jean Johnstone, said the council estimated that $450 million had been spent in the capital by production companies out of a record national total of $750 million.
The movie input compares with the economic impact of the America's Cup regatta, which last year brought $640 million into the New Zealand economy and created the equivalent of 10,620 fulltime jobs.
Racing syndicates, super-yacht owners and millions of spectators spent $640 million during the regatta, an Office of Tourism and Sport study found.
Auckland's share during the six months of cup racing last summer was $473 million.
Cup events led to a 1.4 per cent growth spurt for Auckland and pushed the national economy along by 0.8 per cent.
It was Wellington which took the lion's share of movie money.
Last year, Wellington accounted for just 17 per cent of total screen production expenditure, or $50.4 million.
Ms Johnstone estimated that the Wellington region now took in 60 per cent of production spending.
Total expenditure was also significantly boosted by filming in Queenstown of another United States-backed movie, The Vertical Limit.
Screen Producers and Directors Association chief executive Jane Wrightson said she could not yet put an accurate figure on total spending in New Zealand but conservatively expected it to be about $500 million.
She would not elaborate because Spada's screen production survey for the year to March 31 was still being compiled.
It surveyed about 100 organisations in film, television, advertising and multimedia production.
But Ms Wrightson agreed that the amount would bury last year's expenditure of $307 million.
Results are expected to show that total expenditure by feature film companies alone was now worth about the same amount, easily overshadowing the $15.5 million spent last year.
Previously the country's best year was 1996, when $46 million was spent while Jackson was filming The Frighteners in Wellington.
Ms Johnstone said that while Wellington's success was mainly because it was the home base for Lord of the Rings, other productions had made an impact.
These included Cloud 9's The Tribe, Dark Knight made at Avalon Studios, and feature films Stickmen and The Irrefutable Truth About Demons.
The Lord of the Rings, which has been reported as having a budget of up to $690 million, is expected to wrap up filming this month.
It started shooting in October last year.
Because production expenditure estimates covered until the end of March, only six months of that project's impact were used in the survey results.
The Lord of the Rings project can thus be expected to again have a very strong impact on next year's figures.
Film earnings compare favourably with the $168 million New Zealand earned from wine exports in the 12 months to June.
But they are small compared with the $3.6 billion in tourism spending in New Zealand and $22.6 billion in merchandise exports in the year to June last year.
- NZPA
Big films bring $450m to capital
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