James Cameron’s Move From Hollywood To New Zealand Had Less To Do With Avatar Than You’d Guess

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New Zealand is now a major hub for filmmaking, largely thanks to Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings films. The Avatar franchise is likely the second biggest to be filmed there. Director James Cameron has lived in New Zealand since 2020, and while the films are a factor, he probably would have chosen to live there even without them.

James Cameron shared in a preview of his upcoming interview on the In Depth with Graham Bensinger podcast that his connection to New Zealand began 15 years before the first Avatar movie. He unexpectedly visited in 1994 and knew then that he wanted to eventually live there. Cameron went on to explain…

I first visited New Zealand in 1994 while traveling to the South Pole. Our flights were cancelled due to icy conditions, leaving us stranded. During that time, I explored the Christchurch area and quickly fell in love with the country – its landscapes, its people, and the lifestyle. I knew then that I wanted to live there someday.

The first Avatar film helped James Cameron achieve a long-held ambition. Two years after its release, he and his wife, Suzy Amis, purchased a farm in New Zealand. For the next ten years, they divided their time between New Zealand and California.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the final factor that led Cameron to commit to moving to New Zealand permanently. He was already in the midst of making the next two Avatar films—later titled The Way of Water and Fire and Ash—when the pandemic caused New Zealand to close its borders. This made it hard for Cameron and his family to return to their farm and restart production. After he was finally able to travel back, he decided to stay in New Zealand for good, and continued working on the films.

Getting our New Zealand production back on its feet was a huge challenge, honestly. After all that effort, my family and I just felt it was the right time to make a permanent move there.

I’ve been to New Zealand and it’s truly a stunning place, so I get why someone would want to live there. But whether James Cameron will keep working there is another matter. Although scripts for Avatar 4 and 5 are finished and the films are still on Disney’s schedule, there’s been no announcement about when production will start, and Cameron has hinted that those two movies aren’t definitely happening.

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2026-01-23 16:08