Director Peter Jackson is now focusing his attention on his World War One museum project at New Zealand’s former Dominion Museum Building in Wellington after completing the Hobbit movie trilogy.

New Zealand-born Jackson, who filmed and directed both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series of films among others, will lead the creative team developing the exhibition, which was announced in August by the country’s Prime Minister John Key.

The museum is scheduled to open in April to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli battle, with a gallery dedicated to the event. Over the next four years, further galleries to mark other battles in which New Zealanders fought will also be opened.

Other partners in the project – which will run from April 2015 through the duration of the centenary period – include the New Zealand Defence Force and the Wellington City Council.

"[The museum] is where most of my time is now, which is good," said Jackson. "It's fun and it's free. The exhibits will be very, very interesting and I'm enjoying it.

“This museum will not cover the strategies of the generals, but will deal with what life was like for both the Kiwi soldiers leaving their families to fight a foreign war on the other side of the world, and for those left behind.”

While Jackson’s focus might currently be on the exhibition there have recently been calls for a permanent Hobbit museum in New Zealand, which the director would surely also play a major part in developing.

Call for Hobbit museum on the back of impressive tourism numbers for New Zealand

Peter Jackson to develop First World War exhibition in New Zealand