A remake of the Disney classic Pete's Dragon is expected to be worth 800 jobs in Wellington.

Film work brought $700 million into the region last year, which was more than 80 percent of all the country's earnings from films.

Grow Wellington chief Gerard Quinn says Pete's Dragon brings new money from outside New Zealand.

"It's going to be spent in terms of tradespeople making equipment and sets, it's going to be technical people, it's going to be caterers, it's going to be marketers. So it's really going to shared around the whole economy."

Mr Quinn says the city will benefit from all stages of the filmmaking process.

"Pre-production, location, shooting, all the technical work and then the post-production. So it's really going to be benefit of 10s of millions of dollars to the region."

Filming will take place in Wellington, Wairarapa and Rotorua from January to April next year.

Pre-production work starts in November this year.