OPP Magazine | 1 July 2014

Titanic land purchases in New Zealand

By Christopher Nye

Film director James Cameron has bought 12 large properties near Wellington, on North Island, and “plans to settle there indefinitely.”

The Canadian-born director of Aliens, The Terminator, Titanic and Avatar has bought up two more properties, one of 6.7 hectares and the other of 41 hectares, according to the New Zealand land registry, (LINZ). This brings his total purchases in the area to at least 12, says the NZFarmer website. Last year he bought a 420-hectare dairy farm on Western Lake Road, Featherston, and a walnut orchard.

Cameron discovered the area in 2007 when filming Avatar in Wellington, and successfully applied to reside in New Zealand under the Investor Plus category, for foreigners investing more than NZ$10million (£5.1m). Cameron is required to stay in the country for at least 88 days over two years, but according to his application under the Overseas Investment Act 2005: “James Cameron and his family intend to reside indefinitely in New Zealand. They are acquiring the land as part of a larger acquisition of land in South Wairarapa which they will use as a residence and working farm.”

Who can doubt that he will be as successful at farming as he is at film directing. The 59-year-old Oscar winner from Ontario is a perfectionist and notoriously difficult to work with, but with New Zealand dairy farming he has picked a less fickle business than movies. The Chinese public’s huge new demand for dairy produce has boosted the sector, and the economy in general.

Wellington is also the primary base of New Zealand’s film industry, with Sir Peter Jackson’s Tolkien movies bringing a host of famous actors to the city over the past 15 years.