Taika Waititi

There are many ways to measure success in Hollywood. The algorithm that speaks most loudly to studio executives, however, is box office revenue. And by that metric writer/director Taika Waititi is a billion-dollar man. Ask in a year, after his movie Thor: Love and Thunder has been and gone, and that figure will have doubled.

Waititi has also conquered the bigger challenge in Hollywood: balancing art and commerce. While his name has sat alongside studio "tent-pole' ' franchises like Thor, he has also produced passion projects, such as the comedydrama Jojo Rabbit, and now, the swashbuckling pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death.

Our Flag Means Death puts Waititi on the deck of an 18th century sloop named Revenge alongside his longtime friend Rhys Darby. The pair is part of a wave of New Zealand filmmakers and actors who have rewritten the Hollywood playbook, bringing irony and satire to a culture where they were not easily digested.

In the 1990s, Waititi, Darby, Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie and others emerged from university campuses in Wellington and Christchurch, and pushed into New Zealand's vibrant comedy culture. Collaborations sprang forth: the live touring act So You're a Man, the TV sketch comedy series Radiradirah, the radio (and later TV) series Flight of the Conchords, and the film and TV franchise What We Do in the Shadows.

The key to the friendships those collaborations resulted in, and the reason he is back on screen with Darby, Waititi says, is as simple as trust. "I trust them because they're my friends, and I knew them before any of us were famous," Waititi says. "I trust their opinion on things. I trust them to give me an honest opinion and knowing that they don't want anything out of it."

In Hollywood, Waititi says, the opposite can be true. "You can't trust anyone, you ask someone for an opinion, and they'll be really nice. And you're like, what do you want from me? Or [do] they want you to fail.

"Hollywood is like high school," Waititi adds. "It's big, there are those groups of people, and none of them really know what they're doing. And you find your little crew of people who you trust. I've always just trusted these guys. And it just comes from a mutual love and respect and having worked together for nearly 30 years."

Darby concurs. "If it works, don't break it, and if it's not broken, don't fix it," he says. "You pick up friends along the way, people that you gel with and stuff, and that's great. But it's also a little New Zealand thing as well. It's us against the world."

Looking back at the group's shared filmographies , the early signs pointing to potential success were there. As far back as the 2003, Waititi's short film Two Cars, One Night, earned him an Oscar nomination. The film is about three kids left in adjacent cars at the local pub car park, whose rivalry gives way to friendship. When he attended the Oscars in 2005, Waititi feigned being asleep when the camera cut to him. Fifteen years later he would win one, for Jojo Rabbit.

Of all the group's collaborations, What We Do in the Shadows is the strongest. The original feature film , based on an earlier 29-minute short film from 2005, has become a creatively rich base, spawning two spin-off television series - a US-set sequel and the police comedy Wellington Paranormal.

In Our Flag Means Death, in addition to directing and producing duties, Waititi plays the pirate Blackbeard, who comes up against Darby's character, the "gentleman pirate' ' Stede Bonnet in the Caribbean in 1717. Bonnet sets out "to find adventure and renown on the high seas," the series promises in its opening text. "Things did not go to plan," it warns.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Our Flag Means Death is that it is based on a true story. Bonnet, who lived from 1688 to 1718, was an early 18th century landowner who gave up wealth, status and family to break into the piracy game.

In the show, Bonnet meets Blackbeard, who is jaded about his own success and wondering if there is any adventure left in piracy. "It's boring for Blackbeard now, he's like, no one puts up a fight . They just see the flag , and they just give up," Waititi says.

The casting of Darby works because Darby's inherent likeability helps the audience navigate the flaws in Bonnet's character. "He doesn't do anything horrible, that's the thing. When we meet him, he is there for the adventure and the things he's read about in books," Waititi says. "But he's got no real idea about the actual high stakes of bloodshed and murder and all the other really bad things that go along with pirating," adds Waititi. "Rhys is just inherently lovable. You can't help but love him. I think it just made perfect sense. For him to be the leader of this group of not very good pirates either, it's a perfect dynamic."

Our Flag Means Death is streaming on Binge.

This article by Michael Idato is from the March 5, 2022 issue of The Age Digital Edition. To subscribe, visit "https://www.theage.com.au".