It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital visual effects for Heavenly Creatures.

[6] The company was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital visual effects for the film Heavenly Creatures.

The scale of the battles required for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy led to the creation of MASSIVE, a program which can animate huge numbers of agents: independent characters acting according to pre-set rules.

[13] For James Cameron's Avatar, Weta Digital modified MASSIVE to give life to the flora and fauna on Pandora, for which the company did most of the visual effects with Joe Letteri,[14] under a team led by executive and producer Eileen Moran.

[25] For The Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the studio developed a new grooming system called Barbershop where users can interactively manipulate digital hair.

[44][45] In December 2020, Weta Digital CEO Prem Akkaraju announced additional board members including Tom Staggs, Jeff Huber and Ken Kamins.

[71] An investigation into Wētā's workplace culture by Kiwi public TV broadcaster 1News, begun in June 2020 following a social media post by former Wētā Workshop employee Layna Lazar, resulted in more than 40 current and former Weta Digital employees anonymously sharing accounts of "sexism, bullying and harassment" in September 2020.

[72][73][74] In their testimonies, workers identified the existence of a male-only pornographic mailing list called "Caveman", which originated in 2002 following a company-wide tradition known as Porn Friday, and continued to circulate until 2015.

[76][77][78] Dean put forward 17 recommendations for internal reform, including the establishment of a code of conduct, restricting the executive team, expanding the diversity and inclusion program, and reviewing the company's pay structure.

[76][79] Her review also stated that the existing management systems were not sufficient to protect workers "from bullying, sexual harassment, sex discrimination and other inappropriate conduct".