It's the film that has broken New Zealand box office records, both for biggest opening weekend and now for highest grossing film of all time. Hunt For The Wilderpeople is about foster kid Ricky on the run from police and child services, all with the help of Sam Neill.
It’s the brainchild of Taika Waititi, who is responsible for a bunch of episodes of Flight Of The Conchords, the vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows, and he’s getting set to direct the new Marvel movie Thor Ragnarok.
Not only is he responsible for the success of Hunt For The Wilderpeople, but Waititi broke the record set by a previous film of his, Boy.
“It’s bittersweet… I prefer the other film to this one,” he joked.
“It’s not really about the records, so much as it is New Zealanders want to see a New Zealand film."
Waititi thinks that time time of a Kiwi cultural cringe is cover.
“It’s hard to get audiences along to stuff. It’s a stigma that’s stayed with us over the years of not thinking we were very cool.”
At this point his young star Julian Dennison piped up.
“It sounds so sad!”
I’m not talking about us, I’m talking about the country.”
“It’s making me feel depressed.”
“I said it used to be like that.”
“Nah, it’s still like that.”
Dennison and Waititi first worked together on an ad for a campaign against drunk driving. He became known as ‘The Lips Kid’.
“I’d be walking down the street and someone in a car would go ‘do the lips’.”
DO THE LIPS Source: Supplied
Waititi got his start in the industry as an actor, and it wasn’t until finding himself on a show called The Strip that he considered moving on to bigger things.
“I played a stripper who didn’t get to strip that much,” he said. “I remember being on that show and just thinking, I don’t know if I want to go this acting job much longer... I was in a g-string”.
“It’s like floss in your bum,” Dennison adds helpfully.
Waititi is about to make a film that’s the polar opposite of his small Kiwi films, and will soon being production on Thor Rangarok. The difficulty of making a superhero movie feel original is a trap he’s aware of, but has faith in Marvel’s ability to choose directors with a experience outside the genre.
“It’s not about finding people with experience it’s about finding people who know how to tell a story,” he said.
“I’ll shoot it in black and white, and make it Polish, with subtitles. Probably put the Lips Kid in there somewhere.”
