The Australian visual-effects teams quietly shaping major international productions
Many of the amazing visuals in the latest Hunger Games movie come from Adelaide. Photo: Lionsgate
Both in front of – and behind the camera – 2026 has been another huge year for South Australia’s screen scene.
Along with the massive slate of movies and television shows shot in the state, there’s work you might never realise has an Australian connection at all.
Adelaide visual-effects teams are quietly helping shape major international films and series.
PDV – visual effects and post-production – can be just as important to the final movie or series as what happens on set. And Adelaide companies are working on some of Hollywood’s biggest productions.
Rising Sun Pictures has been part of two Academy Award-nominated visual-effects teams, for X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2015 and Sinners in 2026.
Here are some of the major productions that South Australian businesses are helping to bring to the screen.
Kill Jackie
Prime Video from October 2
Catherine Zeta-Jones stars in and executive produces this eight-part revenge thriller about an art dealer whose past as an international cocaine dealer catches up with her.
Based on Nick Harkaway’s The Price You Pay, the series comes from SA company Steel Springs Pictures with SA’s Peter Lawson executive producing alongside Zeta-Jones, and SA studios KOJO, Resin and Studio 508 handling post-production.
Catherine Zeta Jones thanks to South Australian filmmakers. Photo: Amazon Prime
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
In cinemas November 19
The next Hunger Games film heads back 24 years before Katniss Everdeen’s story, to the 50th Hunger Games won by a teenage Haymitch Abernathy.
Adelaide’s Rising Sun Pictures is working on the visual effects.
The latest Hunger Games installment has an Adelaide flavour. Photo: Lionsgate
Wicker
In cinemas November 26 and screening at Adelaide Film Festival
Olivia Colman plays a fisherwoman who finally has enough of being mocked by her village and orders herself a husband made of wicker.
Alexander Skarsgård plays the resulting man, with Peter Dinklage as the basketmaker.
Adelaide filmmaker Eleanor Wilson co-writes and directs with Alex Huston Fischer, while Studio 508 and KOJO handle the local PDV.
Wicker has South Australian filmmaking woven in. Photo: Roadshow
One Piece season 2
Netflix
The Straw Hat Pirates head into the Grand Line in search of the world’s greatest treasure, encountering bizarre islands, new allies and dangerous enemies.
Adelaide’s Rising Sun Pictures worked on the visual effects for season two.
Pressure
Release date October 29 and screening at Adelaide Film Festival
The fate of D-Day hangs on a weather forecast in this World War II drama about Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) and meteorologist James Stagg (Andrew Scott) deciding whether conditions are safe enough to launch the invasion.
South Australian Anthony Maras directs and co-writes, with Adelaide’s Artisan Post Group handling PDV.
Why all this screen work matters
A screen production doesn’t just employ actors and camera crews.
The South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) supports that work through development and production funding, Adelaide Studios and initiatives including the ABC SAFC Content Pipeline Fund and PDV rebate.
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