Josh Hutcherson poses backstage with his awards for Best Male Performance and Best Movie of the Year for his performance in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles
Actor Josh Hutcherson poses backstage with his awards for Best Male Performance and Best Movie of the Year for his performance in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles, California April 13, 2014. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

World-famous Hollywood director James Cameron has announced his intent to settle down in New Zealand with wife Suzy Amis. Both are planning to apply for New Zealand's citizenship and move to their Wairarapa farm.

The iconic film maker sees New Zealand as a "sensible place" that is in sync with the values he cherishes in life. He also said that New Zealanders are people of values and are not crazy, Stuff.co.Nz reports.

Love For New Zealand

Explaining the reasons in choosing New Zealand, the veteran filmmaker said he wanted to spend less time in California and enjoy a lifestyle that is closer to nature. New Zealand's vast agrarian societies encourage a healthy lifestyle. He also said living in New Zealand permanently will not hinder his film career, as much of the work on his current "Avatar" project will be done in the country.

Praising New Zealand, James Cameron said there is something about the country, the people and the landscape that's fascinating. "Bulk of the society is agrarian and lives close to the earth, and these are things I find comfortable as I go on in life more and more."

Cameron fell in love with New Zealand on his very first visit to the country. "It really spoke to me when I first visited here in 1994," Cameron recalled. "I kept talking to Suzy, that someday we would go and live in New Zealand and finally took her and we flew down and she too fell in love with it. Now it is a done deal." Cameron also owns an orchard and heritage property in Greytown.

Avatar Sequels

The Canadian film director also revealed his plans to incorporate the locales of New Zealand in his new projects. He mentioned how New Zealand would have missed out in the production of "Avatar" sequels if the government had not stepped in with a benign film-funding plan. Cameron stated, "For us, doing it in New Zealand was for emotional reasons. But a big corporation in 20th Century Fox was writing a big cheque for these movies. So we had to present a case. That is why we took our problem to the Government," Cameron explained as quoted by Stuff.co. Nz.

Cameron, admired worldwide for films such as "Terminator," "Aliens" and the "Titanic," has a three-decade filmmaking career, reports Hollywood Reporter. Incidentally, Cameron's documentary "Deepsea Challenger" was screened in New Zealand at Wellington's Embassy Theatre on Sunday.

It charts the pursuits of a pilot of a one-man submarine trying to explore the Mariana Trench, the world's deepest seabed.