John Barnett

John Barnett spent almost two decades leading South Pacific Pictures, one of New Zealand's most successful production companies. Barnett has been a producer or executive producer on four of the country's 10 top grossing films: Footrot Flats, Whale Rider, Sione's Wedding, and Once Were Warriors sequel What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Barnett's success owes much to his ability to recognise a good idea — often one that already resonates with a wide audience — then finding the resources to bring that idea to fruition, however long it might take. Another strength is his knack of picking promising creatives to helm projects; people like Niki Caro on Whale Rider, Vanessa Alexander and Peter Salmon on Emmy-nominated TV series Being Eve, Roseanne Liang (romance My Wedding and Other Secrets), and the multicultural team behind Sione's Wedding.

Barnett grew up surrounded by books — for a time his parents ran a "very smart" book shop in downtown Auckland. His business brain was evident from early on. While studying for a commerce degree at Victoria University, he started a graphic design business with a friend — despite Barnett not being able "to draw a straight line". In 1970 he and three fellow graduates invested in the underfunded National Business Review, New Zealand's first financial publication (he was an NBR director for 13 years). Barnett was on the hunt for new opportunities. He has long "enjoyed seeing things take off and ideas get realised". 

Barnett's producing career began with children's fantasy The Games Affair, shot during the 1974 Commonwealth Games. Friends invited him on board to help pitch and make this early indie production, despite Barnett having had "no experience or exposure" to the screen industry. But the job was "fun, so that's how it started". 

"We shot it for $96,000, six half-hours, in Christchurch, on location," Barnett told The Listener. "That was the budget we had from the network and we brought it in under budget, and they said they would never give us another commission, because they hadn't thought we should make a profit." The crew included a range of future Kiwi screen luminaries, from Don Reynolds to Geoff Murphy. State television were also open to documentary ideas. Endeavour Television, the company set up to make The Games Affair, went on to make a trio of profiles of local authors; Barnett also won funding to interview Indian PM Indira Gandhi, as part of a series on women politicians which ultimately did not eventuate.

When state television closed its doors to independent filmmakers, Barnett switched to managing talent — notably his uni friend John Clarke, whose rural alter ego Fred Dagg made a swift rise to multimedia stardom. Barnett's first incursion into movie theatres occured when director Geoff Murphy approached him with Wild Man (1977), an expanded episode of Blerta. Adding extra footage brought it close to the length required for a theatrical release. Throwing a Fred Dagg film on top made for an enticing double bill. Murphy and Clarke began filming Dagg Day Afternoon in Wellington on a Monday, and finished in Auckland on Friday, writing material as they went. The half-hour film marked Fred Dagg's only big screen appearance.

Barnett followed it in 1979 with his first feature: acclaimed dramedy Middle Age Spread (watch it in full here). He described it as "a modest little film" that did "very well" at the local box office. Thanks to the success of Roger Hall's play about a school principal having an affair, it had a built-in audience. Indicative of Barnett's successes is a canny ability to pick projects for which there is a likely market demand.

Barnett's next project was early Kiwi hit Beyond Reasonable Doubt, based on Arthur Allan Thomas's conviction for the murders of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe. It marked the feature debut of director John Laing, who would later produce one of South Pacific Pictures' biggest TV hits, Outrageous Fortune. Financing came from the NZ Film Commission and prominent business people who wanted the story told (including Michael Fay, David Richwhite, Ron Brierley and Bob Jones). Barnett outlines the project's legal complications in this 1980 TV report. Beyond Reasonable Doubt held its place among the top ten local releases into the 1990s.

During the hectic 1980s tax break period, Barnett was New Zealand's most prolific producer. He worked on both local productions (Wild Horses), and foreign shoots stretching their dolllars downunder (big budget romp Race for the Yankee Zephyr,  horror movie Strange Behavior/Dead Kids). Noting that school holiday movies attracted big audiences, he produced early Kiwi children's film Nutcase, and fought archaic cinema licensing laws in an attempt to screen it himself, before cinema chain Amalgamated belatedly made an offer.

Barnett also helped producer Pat Cox find finance for New Zealand's first animated hit, Footrot Flats. Barnett played a hand in the film's ambitious marketing efforts, including music and merchandising. In 1986, Dave Dobbyn/Herbs single 'Slice of Heaven' topped the local charts, and made the Australian top 10. Barnett recalls that at first Kiwi radio stations showed no interest; some argued that "nobody wants to see a bunch of Māoris jumping around a stage". When a trailer/music video won fans in cinemas, radio had to get on board. 

Barnett would go on to find finance — and a director — for the acclaimed Whale Rider (2002), after taking over the project from its original producer Murray Newey. The film won a BAFTA Award, Oscar nominations for actor Keisha Castle-Hughes, and over $50 million internationally. Another project that took years to hone was Polynesian comedy Sione's Wedding (2006). "Sione took a while, because not everybody could see that it was going to have a wide appeal — some people told me it would be very limited but I never had any doubt."

In November 1993 Barnett was appointed managing director of South Pacific Pictures, which had begun five years earlier as a drama unit under TVNZ. Five years later he led a management buyout of the company. Barnett was SPP's Chief Executive and owned 40 percent, with the remainder owned by Brit-based production and distribution conglomerate All3Media. Barnett writes here about the company's birth, key strategies, and "enormous" output. In May 2014 All3Media was purchased by companies Discovery Communications (who own the Discovery Channel) and Liberty Global.

Barnett had already (in 2012) handed the Chief Executive reins to ex TV3 programming head Kelly Martin, and became SPP chairman; the following year he sold his stake in the company to All3Media. Barnett argued that All3Media's "federal model" allowed individual companies to run independently, with creative freedom, meaning business as usual. "We've made our reputation from telling New Zealand stories to New Zealanders and to world audiences. That is where our future lies." Barnett left SPP at the end of 2015.

The company's annual output has sometimes represented as much as 40 percent of local TV production. Among that output, Barnett describes SPP's flagship soap Shortland Street as vital for having trained a wide range of crew whose skills have fed into the screen industry as a whole. The show has also been a major catalyst in helping "New Zealanders accept New Zealand drama to a degree that had not happened before". Another key show was Outrageous Fortune. Barnett argues that the remake rights sold overseas thanks to the show's universal concept of "a family that lives just a little bit on the edge, trying to go straight".

SPP's television output has ranged widely: from teen shows (Being Eve, Riding High), to urban ensemble tales both edgy (City Life) and lighthearted (Nothing Trivial), to ambitious dystopian co-productions (Maddigan's Quest) and Norse god dramedies (The Almighty Johnsons). 

Years after helping rescue the National Business Review from potential oblivion, Barnett played a hand in the launch of screen industry mag Onfilm, alongside founders Sue May and cinematographer Graeme Cowley. In 2007 Barnett and businessman Michael Stiassny provided funding to rescue hip hop label Dawn Raid, when it was in danger of going under.

Barnett has been a frequent commentator on developments in New Zealand's screen industry. As early as 1980 he was arguing that state television wasted tens of millions of dollars on administration, and he has also commented often on the policies of the NZ Film Commission, on whose board he spent eight years. Barnett has also been involved in film, television and video distribution, and the development of local multiplex cinemas and cable channel Sundance (now the Rialto Channel).

In 2002 Barnett received the SPADA/Onfilm Industry Champion Award. The following year he was made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit, then in 2020, a Companion (CNZM). He also been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Commerce at Victoria University, for his contribution to New Zealand film and television. In 2017 he was presented with a special TV Legend Award, at the NZ Television Awards.

As the website for Barnett's company Endeavour Ventures indicates, he continues to develop new screen projects. In 2024 he co-produced (with Chloe Smith) six-part serial killer thriller Dark City: The Cleaner. It was adapted from the bestseller by novelist Paul Cleave.

As Barnett says in this extended interview, the key questions have always been "how can we represent the country that we come from in the kind of stories that we tell? How can we take that to the world? How can we develop new talent? . . .  I get disappointed in people who think that the status quo is where we should sit.  . . . every day’s a new world."

Barnett also did this video interview in 2009. Published in 2018, NZ On Screen's Thirty Years of South Pacific Pictures Collection includes this backgrounder written by Barnett.

Profile updated on 20 December 2024 

Sources include
John Barnett
Endeavour Ventures website. Accessed 20 December 2024
'ScreenTalk Legends - John Barnett' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Kathryn Quirk. Loaded 15 August 2024. Accessed 24 October 2024
'Producer John Barnett reflects' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Clare O'Leary. Loaded 11 January 2009. Accessed 24 October 2024
South Pacific Pictures website. Accessed 20 December 2024
Eugene Bingham, 'New Zealanders of the year: John Barnett' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 9 February 2006
John Drinnan,'The interview: John Barnett' - The NZ Herald, 18 August 2007
Nevil Gibson,' NBR: the first 50 years' - NBR, 26 August 2020
William Mace, 'Barnett sells South Pacific Pictures stake'. Stuff website. Loaded 9 April 2013. Accessed 3 January 2020
William Mace, 'South Pacific Pictures will keep NZ focus' Stuff website. Loaded 10 April 2013. Accessed 3 January 2020
Scott Murray and Robert Le Tet, 'John Barnett - Producer' (Interview) - Cinema Papers - Special Issue, The New Zealand Film Industry, May 1980, page 37
John O’Shea, ‘A Charmed Life: Fragments of Memory..and Extracts from Conversations’ in Film in Aotearoa New Zealand. Editors Jonathan Dennis and Jan Bieringa (Wellington: Victoria University Press, Second Edition 1996)
Lindsay Shelton, 'John Barnett' in New Zealand Film - An Illustrated History. Editor Diane Pivac, with Frank Stark and Lawrence McDonald (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011)
Lesley Stevens, Footrot Flats The Dog's (Tail) Tale - The Making of the Movie (Lower Hutt: Inprint Limited, 1986)
Denis Welch, 'The Producer' (Interview) - The Listener, 5 July 2003 (Volume 189, Issue 3295)
'Right Royal Barney'(Interview) - Onfilm, December 2002  
'Top 20 Films at the New Zealand Box Office'. NZ Film Commission website. Accessed 20 December 2024