Māui & Elvis: Indigenous International Co-Production Sci-Fi Kids Series Sets Up in New Zealand and Vancouver for November 2026 Shoot

An ambitious international Indigenous co-production is moving through pre-production with a November 2026 cameras-up date, and working professionals in both New Zealand and Vancouver should have this one on their radar now. Māui & Elvis is a live-action sci-fi adventure-comedy series for children and families, produced through a landmark collaboration between Whakaata Māori in New Zealand and APTN in Canada. With casting actively underway in both countries and a planned 2027 premiere, the hiring pipeline for this production is open and moving. The combination of a dual-country shoot, a strong public broadcaster and funding body backing, and a genuinely original premise makes this one of the more compelling family productions in development across either jurisdiction right now.

The series centers on two best friends: Māui, a Māori teenager from New Zealand, and Elvis, a Métis teenager from Canada, who are forced to team up to save Māui's grandmother after an alien bent on world destruction takes over her body. It is exactly the kind of high-concept, culturally grounded genre storytelling that has been gaining significant traction with international streamers and distributors hungry for distinctive family content. At least 30 percent of the dialogue will be in te reo Māori, which signals a production deeply committed to authentic Indigenous representation both on screen and, one would expect, behind the camera as well. The series is produced by Janine Morrell-Gunn through New Zealand's Whitebait Media and Camille Beaudoin through Canada's Mosaic Entertainment. Morrell-Gunn is a well-regarded figure in New Zealand production circles, known for her work developing locally-driven content through Whitebait Media, a company with a track record in New Zealand children's and family programming. Beaudoin and Mosaic Entertainment bring Canadian Indigenous production experience to the partnership, which is consistent with the project's co-production structure and its alignment with the Indigenous Screen Office and APTN.

The institutional backing behind Māui & Elvis is extensive and signals a production with real financial architecture in place. New Zealand-side funding comes from Screen Canterbury, the New Zealand Film Commission, NZ On Air, and Whakaata Māori. Canadian funding is drawn from Telefilm Canada, Creative BC, the Canada Media Fund, and the Indigenous Screen Office, with APTN serving as the Canadian broadcaster. That breadth of public funding from two countries is not incidental. It reflects a formal international co-production treaty arrangement, which typically brings with it specific requirements around spending, crew ratios, and creative participation in each territory. For crew in both New Zealand and Canada, that structure is genuinely good news: it means the budget is real, the spend on both sides is contractually committed, and this is not a project that will quietly dissolve. Blue Ant International is attached for international distribution, which adds a commercial layer to what might otherwise read as a purely public-broadcaster-driven project.

Principal photography is scheduled to begin in November 2026, with the primary filming base in New Zealand's South Island, specifically the Canterbury region, and additional scenes shooting in Vancouver. Canterbury is an increasingly active production region in New Zealand, centered on Christchurch, which has been building its screen infrastructure steadily over the past decade. The region benefits from New Zealand's internationally competitive screen production rebate, which currently offers a 20 percent base grant through the Screen Production Rebate, with uplift available for productions meeting additional criteria around New Zealand content and expenditure. The landscape around Canterbury, ranging from alpine terrain to coastal plains, is well suited to a sci-fi adventure series with a big visual canvas. Productions based in Christchurch have access to a growing local crew base, though for a series of this scale and specificity, some department heads may be sourced from Auckland or Wellington, where New Zealand's deepest crew pools sit. The Vancouver component will likely be a shorter block shoot, capturing the Canadian-set elements of the story, and that city's extraordinarily experienced film and television crew base needs no introduction to anyone reading this.

In terms of production scale, Māui & Elvis is shaping up as a mid-to-upper-tier children's series with genre ambitions that will require meaningful investment across multiple departments. Sci-fi adventure for family audiences, even at the television series level, typically demands a strong art department capable of building or sourcing otherworldly set pieces, a VFX pipeline for the alien-related story elements, and a locations department comfortable working across diverse New Zealand landscapes. The bilingual production requirement (te reo Māori dialogue throughout) will also shape casting, script coordination, and likely on-set cultural consultation in ways that distinguish this from a standard family series. Costume and makeup departments should anticipate design work that bridges contemporary New Zealand and Canadian settings with genre and possibly alien character work. Given the dual-country structure, a production coordinator and a line producer or UPM with international co-production experience will be particularly valuable hires.

With production still more than a year out, the current pre-production phase is focused on casting and early department head conversations, but that window will close faster than it appears. Productions of this scale and complexity, particularly those navigating two countries and multiple funding bodies, tend to begin locking key crew well ahead of their official start dates. ProductionList.com carries the full listing for Māui & Elvis, including production contacts, office details, and crew information as it becomes available. If you are a New Zealand-based crew member, a Vancouver department head, or a casting professional with Indigenous community connections in either country, now is exactly the right time to get your name in front of the producers. Check the full listing at ProductionList.com and bookmark it for updates as this production moves through pre-production toward its November 2026 start.

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