The successes of the filmmaker's earlier works such as Boy and Hunt For The Wilderpeople (the top two grossing films in New Zealand), as well as horror-comedy What We Do In The Shadows (co-written and directed with friend and collaborator, Jemaine Clement) and Academy Award-nominated short film, Two Cars, One Night, were enough for Hollywood to come knocking.
In Sydney this month to talk about his biggest project to date, Waititi, relaxed as ever, explains how he contained the nerves while filming Thor: Ragnarok.
"I think if you look at the story, this is basically an independent film with crazier costumes," he says. "It's just about a guy who goes out, gets drunk and gets lost and is trying to get home... kinda shrink it down to that idea. Then all the relationships [Thor's] got - he's trying to get on with his brother, he comes from this dysfunctional family and his mate is this bipolar guy who gets really angry all the time... that for me is a story that I can imprint my Taika-kinda style on.
"All the rest of it, the explosions and spaceships and all that stuff, that's not the important stuff. The important stuff is the emotion and the relationships and his emotional journey through the film. That's the only way I could approach it."
The 42-year-old admits though that the process of directing a Hollywood film compared to an indie is vast.
"You've gotta watch out what you ask for," he laughs. "I suggested making a spaceship as a joke and then [the studio] made it! All those elements, you're only limited by your imagination with these kind of films and that's an amazing thing.
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"My films are most definitely limited by budget and time so anything I can imagine, you know, 'I want a big spaceship and a hurricane' and they say, 'Well, maybe you could just get one of your characters to describe that instead of us actually spending money on it.'"
Thor: Ragnarok has already received acclaim from critics and fans, specifically due to the edgier and, simply put, funnier direction it takes the franchise. Don't be mistaken, though it's is a Disney project, this is Waititi's film.
"I think when we made a really hard-hitting drama and people couldn't stop laughing, we just changed the description to comedy," Waititi jokes. "Right from the beginning [the studio] got me in to pitch on the film. They said that they wanted to make a departure from Thor one and two, which had little bits of humour in them, but they were definitely a lot more serious in tone and they just wanted to move in a completely new direction and just to shake things up.
"And also just, for Chris [Hemsworth] especially, he wanted to do something that just felt new for him."
As he does in most films, Waititi throws himself in the thick of it all. In Thor: Ragnarok, his character, Korg, requires the director to spend a lot of time on set in a motion capture suit; not the most comfortable of tasks when you have to order the likes of Sir Anthony Hopkins (or "Hoppo") and Cate Blanchett around.
"It's really hard to be taken seriously as a director and order people around when you're wearing speckly pyjamas and covered in ping pong balls," he smiles. "But I've had that on all my films where I look like an idiot and try to direct people. In What We Do In The Shadows dressed like a 17th century dandy trying to be taking seriously as you're hanging off a wire with a frilly shirt, going, 'Hey guys, can we hurry up 'cause I can't feel my legs.'
"But it's so much fun for me to do a role like that and make people laugh and inject the scenes and film with a little bit of myself and my style of humour."
Given the positive response to Thor: Ragnarok, talk is already underway for Waititi to helm the fourth Thor film and he wouldn't hesitate to return.
"Yeah for sure," he says. "Once this is out and once we've finished all the last little bits of work on this I think we'll regather and decide whether or not we can bear to work together for another two years.
"Luckily, I've made a lot of friends at Marvel and it's been a really cool relationship, and yeah, I'd definitely go back."
