WELLINGTON: Director James Cameron announced Monday he will film three sequels to the record-breaking sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” in New Zealand after striking a deal with the government for increased production subsidies.

Cameron said the movies, with a combined minimum budget of at least NZ$500 million ($415 million), will be shot back-to-back with each sequel released every 12 months from late 2016.

“It’s quite a thrill to officially say that we’ll be bringing the Avatar films to New Zealand,” Cameron told reporters.

The original “Avatar” was partially shot in New Zealand and its Oscar-winning special effects were created by Wellington’s Weta Digital, best known for its work on Kiwi director Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies.

Aside from a boosted subsidy that will account for up to 25 percent of the films’ budget, Cameron said New Zealand offered skilled production crews and the special effects expertise needed to bring his Avatar vision to life.

“I’ve worked with crews all over the world, quite a bit in the US and Canada, and you don’t have that same spark (there),” he said.

The first “Avatar” was released in 2009 and tells the story of a blue-skinned indigenous species fighting to stop miners exploiting their planet Pandora.

It earned $2.78 billion worldwide and remains the highest-grossing movie of all time, according to industry website boxofficemojo.com.

“It’s a great pleasure for us to recreate that winning combination,” said Cameron, who agreed as part of the production deal to advise the government on how to maintain a sustainable film industry.

Prime Minister John Key said securing the sequels was a coup that “will scream out to the world that New Zealand is a great place to make movies.”

“We’ve got to be a lot more as a country than just lamb chops and All Blacks,” he said, referring to two of the country’s best-known symbols.