Phillip Leonhardt Biography, Movies & Filmography

Phil Leonhardt joined Wētā FX in 2005 as a Senior Compositor on Peter Jackson’s King Kong. His expertise quickly became evident, leading to his involvement in many high-profile projects, including X-Men: The Last Stand, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Water Horse, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Lovely Bones. He also contributed as a Lighting TD on James Cameron’s groundbreaking Avatar. Phil’s transition into supervisory roles began with Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, where he oversaw CG and VFX teams. He led major sequences for Man of Steel, The Wolverine, and Furious 7. He supervised the VES Award-nominated Prison Camp sequence in War for the Planet of the Apes and worked on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. He led the Iron City team on Alita: Battle Angel before joining the VFX Supervisor team on Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame. Also, Phil was one of Wētā FX’s Visual Effects Supervisors on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, earning an HPA Award for his work. He has also received HPA nominations for Maze Runner: The Death Cure and Man of Steel. In addition to his film work, Phil has played a key role in Wētā FX’s Research and development initiatives. He has led teams developing advanced paint, roto, and compositing tools and contributed to the design of FX libraries, lighting tools for the Physlight pipeline, and deep compositing workflows—particularly in volumetric rendering. Before working at Wētā FX, Phil built his career in London at Cinesite on the first three Harry Potter films, at MPC on Tomb Raider II and Troy, and at DNEG on The Chronicles of Riddick.