STACK NZ Dec #80

EXTRAS

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HEAD BANGER

all in a day's work From Hunt ForTheWilderpeople to Thor 3 , 2016 has been a big year for TaikaWaititi. However, the Kiwi director has been taking things in his stride.

T aika Waititi admits that he hasn’t really had a chance to draw a breath in 2016. His fourth studio film Hunt For The Wilderpeople not only became the highest grossing New Zealand film of all time, but went onto become a critical hit all over the

on Wilderpeople star Sam Neill’s

involvement in the new Thor movie (“I can’t talk about what Sam’s role is because it would give away too much”), but he’s been pleased with the way Neill and his young co-star Julian Denison have been handling

A fter Shrek 2 and Madagascar 3 , making an animated film for adults was a dream come true for Sausage Party co-director and producer Conrad Vernon. "Doing something adult with animation had been a lifelong dream of mine, but it was surreal in the sense that I was ecstatically happy,” he says. “I had to stop and think, ‘I’m actually making this!’ In fact everybody on the movie would stop and laugh and say, ‘I can’t believe we’re getting to make this, it’s fantastic!’” Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jonah Hill, Sausage Party offers a rudely revealing look at the secret lives of grocery items. Nevertheless, Vernon admits that getting the film greenlit proved to be a challenge, despite the involvement of some of Hollywood’s biggest comedy stars. “When Seth and Evan first pitched it to me, I was going to be handling the animation side and they were going to be handing the actors and script side of things,” he explains. “Once we had all that figured out, we got a bunch of designs together and it was three years of pitching to pretty much every studio in town. That was the biggest challenge of the whole thing – getting anyone to buy into it.” Scott Hocking Sausage Party is out on December 7

world. For much of that time, however, the New Zealander was hard at work on his first major Hollywood assignment Thor: Ragnarok , filming for which he had just completed when STACK caught up with him for a quick chat over the phone. Although he was looking forward to a quick break in NZ, he would soon be heading to Los Angeles to start on post-production, so it’s looking as if next year is going to be just as busy as 2016. Waititi couldn’t say much about what fans could expect from the third Thor film, except they can look forward to “a very new and fresh direction with Thor”. Asked whether it would be a more irreverent take on the Marvel superhero, Waititi wasn’t sure. “I don’t know, the first place I usually go is the irreverent side,” he says. “But it’s the same with Wilderpeople – there is a lot of irreverence but you also have to give it some heart and ground it in something emotional. So I hope to get a similar balance with Thor.” Waititi also couldn’t offer any detail

the international press duties for the Kiwi hit. “I didn’t get to go on any of those trips but I think they are a good team – when they did interviews together they bounced off each other well.” However, he admits he was a little surprised by how Hunt For The Wilderpeople has been embraced by international audiences. “I knew it would appeal to New Zealanders – and to some extent Australians – but we didn’t realise it would travel so well.” Waititi believes its appeal lies partly in the fact that it’s a true underdog story, but also because it’s not as cynical as many modern day movies. “There is a little bit of that in there, but at the end of the day it’s a nice story about two people trying to find family – and then they do.” John Ferguson

EXTRAS

Hunt For The Wilderpeople is out on now DVD and Blu-ray; Thor: Ragnarok is due in cinemas in the latter half of 2017

SHAKERMAKER: ALAN MCGEE ON OASIS Alan McGee, the man who signed Oasis, was surprised when they split up – but doubts they will get back together again.

Last month saw the release of Oasis: Supersonic , which documents the Britpop icons' first five years and their meteoric rise in popularity. McGee, the colourful former boss of Creation Records, is not surprised that Supersonic only covers their early years. In a wide-ranging interview, he told STACK : “I think it would be really hard to do a film on their entire career – really difficult, to be honest with you.” However, he admits he was surprised when they eventually split up. “I thought it was going to go on and just beThe Rolling Stones – it was our generation’s Rolling Stones.” Nevertheless, he doesn’t envisage that they

will be reuniting anytime soon. “Noel Gallagher will never reform, but maybe Liam, in five or ten years time, might form Oasis and not have Noel in it,” McGee says. “I think he’ll get away with it because all people really want is the Oasis songs done by most of the people in the original band with someone who can play as good as Noel.” Paul Jones

Oasis: Supersonic is out on now DVD and Blu-ray. Check out the digital edition of STACK for the full interview.

DECEMBER 2016

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