Netflix is employing a 400-person production team in Auckland to film its live-action remake of the hit Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop.
It's the first-ever Netflix original series to be filmed in New Zealand and many hope it will encourage more large-scale production crews to do the same.
The science fiction series with a cult following is a huge vote of confidence in Auckland's screen sector.
Auckland tourism, events and economic development have helped bring the production to the city.
A 10-episode series will be filmed before the end of the year with Cowboy Bebop employing a crew of more than 400 - the largest ever Auckland television production.
"Major productions like Netflix employ hundreds of people, they also spend a lot of money in the city so employing food accommodation prop makers, buying materials, timber for set construction," General Manager Economic Development Pam Ford told Newshub.
Actor John Cho - who featured in the Star Trek reboot - has been cast as the main character Spike Spiegal - a space cowboy bounty hunter. A number of the other cast members have already been posting on social media about their time in New Zealand.
Netflix says Auckland's production facilities are first-class and it is excited to be filming here, but exactly where that filming is happening is being kept quiet.
"They have a production base in East Tamaki which we've helped research and find for them and enable them to go into that place, and then they do a lot of on-site locations," Ford says.
Organisers are hoping international television giants like Netflix will see Auckland as a long-term base for more production if the city proves successful for Cowboy Bebop.
Newshub.
