Taika Waititi takes Marvel for an indie spin

TAIKA WAITITI WAS WEARING A G-STRING WHEN he decided to start making his own movies. It was 2002, more than a decade before Marvel plucked the director from his native New Zealand and tasked him with revamping the formulaic Thor series into a psychedelic romp for the God of Thunder’s third film, Thor: Ragnarok. Back then, Waititi was just an actor playing a stripper in an Australian television series called the The Strip. And he was not happy about it. “I was being paid money. So on the one hand, I was eating and paying rent,” says Waititi, 42. “On the other hand, I was creatively depressed, because I was getting my body waxed and having to eat tuna all day. I remember thinking, ‘I’m helping to make someone else’s bad idea. I’m sure I have better