Taika Waititi Net Worth (Updated 2023) – Bio Overview

 Taika Waititi is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor, director, screenwriter, and producer from the Bay of Plenty, North Island. Taika Waititi has a net worth of $13 million which he accumulated from his filmmaking career.

He is one of the most multi-talented performers in Hollywood right now. His work always manages to reach a variety of audiences, and his epic resume includes everything from being a director, writer, scene-stealing actor, and even more.

Waititi started his film career making minor, independent comedies but now Taika is an Oscar winner and has been behind the latest installments of the popular Thor movies including 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok.

Waititi gained a lot of popularity for being the director and producer of some superhit movies including Eagle vs Shark (2007), Boy (2010), What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and 2019s film Jojo Rabbit.

Taika Waititi rose to fame after directing the blockbuster film titled Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 which earned more than $854 million at the box office worldwide. Taika made a name for himself in the entertainment industry as both director and producer.

He started working as a producer for the television series Wellington Paranormal in 2019 and followed up for What We Do in the Shadows in 2019. Taiki received a nomination for the Academy Award for his work as a producer for the short film Two Cars, One Night which was released in 2004. 

Despite all of this, Waititi also became one of the most prominent actors in the industry after playing several roles in films including What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit, and many more. He further worked as a voice artist for the 2019 Disney+ series The Mandalorian in which he voiced IG-11. 

Taika was the director of the 4 episodes of the HBO series Flight of the Conchords for which he worked between 2007 to 2009. Watiti won the honor of New Zealander of the Year (2017). 

Taika Waititi Net Worth:

Early Life:

Taika David Cohen was born on the 16th of August 1975, in Raukokore, Bay of Plenty of New Zealand’s North Island. Growing up on both the east coast and in the Arrow Valley of Wellington, he is the son of mother Robin Cohen and father Taika Waititi. 

His father is a farmer and artist who is of the Māori team while his mother was a school teacher and her side of the family were Russin, Irish, English, Scottish, Northern Irish, and Ashkenazi Jewish. So Taika described himself as a Polynesian Jew who was raised more connected to his Māori roots and in their household, he claims Judaism was not actively practiced. 

Early Career:

Waititi said that his father was still very proud of all things he’d accomplished. When Taika’s parents split up when he was around 5 years old which was when he was mainly raised by his mother Robin. He attended Onslow College in New Zealand and then studied theater at Victoria University of Wellington. From there he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts. 

Taika used his mother’s surname Cohen for his work in film and writing and his father’s Waititi for his visual art projects. But following the success of his first short film, he went on to used Waititi professionally.

During his time at Victoria University, Taika was also part of the 5 member comedy troupe So You’re a Man which toured New Zealand as well as Australia and was always half of the comedy duo  The Humourbeasts opposite Jemaine Clement which got the 1999 Billy T Award, New Zealand’s highest comedy Accolade in that year. 

Professional Career:

Waititi also performed several regular stand-up gigs around New Zealand and in 2004 launched his solo production Taika’s, Incredible Show. He has been involved in the arts for many years dabbling in a variety of interests.

Among his range of interests, Taika also started to make comical short movies for New Zealand’s Annual 48-hour film contest. One of his short films titled Two Cars, One Night which was created in 2003 was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.

Taika famously pretended to be asleep as the nomination was being read. His second short movie Tama Tū was about a group of Māori soldiers in Italy during World War II and it won a handful of International awards even becoming Eligible for an Oscar Nomination.

Waititi spent almost two years in Berlin while working and exhibiting and spent years experimenting with photography and painting too. Even illustrating a book of short stories titled “The Keys To Help”.

In fact in a Ted Talk, Taita revealed that his background was mainly in painting and visual arts. Later when he decided to trial animation fashion War, he stated “His Job was to express himself and to share his ideas and his point of view, It happens to be that he is using filmmaking right now”. 

After making his acting debut in the film Scarfies in 1999, he continued to appear in several New Zealand films including 2001s Snakeskin, as well as a 2002 television series The Strip, and The T#ibe. In the following year, Taika was part of the TV series Revelations, and Freaky. 

Breakthrough:

Apart from appearing in films and series, Waititi worked as a director for the short films John and Pogo in 2002, Two Cars, One Night in 2004, and What We Do in the Shadows: Interviews with Some Vampires in 2005. 

In 2007 Taika’s first feature film a rom-com titled Eagle vs Shark was released in the US for limited distribution. He also directed two episodes of the HBO series Flight of the Conchords, a 12-part comedy series created by and starring his college friend Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. 

Taika’s second feature film 2010s Boy premiered at the Sundance Film Festival that year and is the exploration of some of the characters and ideas introduced in his Oscar-nominated short film Two Cars, One Night. 

It was shot in Blade of Plenty and Waititi also took one of the main roles as the culprit father who returns to his family. 

The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and when it was released in New Zealand, it earned enthusiastic reviews, also being successful at the local box office. The film Boy ended up becoming the highest-grossing local movie in New Zealand’s history. 

In 2011 Waititi directed the New Zealand TV show called Super City. That same year he worked on his acting when he played the role of Thomas Kalmaku in the superhero film titled Green Lantern.

Later in -2013 Taika co-directed and acted in the Vampire comedy mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. He appeared in this again alongside friends and fellow comedian Jemaine Clement. 

Taika appeared as Viago and the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. Waititi and his friend Clement played members of the group of Vampires who live in a Gothic House in modern-day Wellington.

A TV version of the film was signed on for 2018 with Waititi as the executive producer and director premiering on FX in March of 2019. The second season of the show earned a Prime Time Emmy Award nomination in the category of Outstanding comedy series.

Further Works:

Taika’s next feature Hunt for the Wilderpeople premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2016. When it was released in his native New Zealand, the comedy adventure broke his previous record for a New Zealand film in its opening weekend. 

This movie is based on a book and centers on a young boy and grumpy man on the run in the forest. Reportedly this movie is well received at Sundance and led Taika to be chosen to direct the Marvel studios film titled Thor: Ragnarok. 

In 2017 when Taika directed Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok which was his first major studio film and in the movie he also portrayed Korg a Cornian via motion capture. The film Thor: Ragnarok was super successful at the box office and earned critical praise. 

In 2019 Taika wrote and directed the film Jojo Rabbit based on the book Caging Skies which is the story of a child set in the 1940s in the Hitler Youth. Taika loves to make cameos in his movies and this one was no different. He played the role of Adolf Hitler as the boy’s imaginary friend. 

Taika received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for JoJo Rabit. Winning the latter and becoming the first person of Māori descent to win an Academy Award in the category.

In 2021 Taika also won the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media as a producer of this film Soundtrack. 

In 2018  Lucasfilm announced Taika would be the director of the Star Wars, live-action series The Mandalorian. That series premiered in November 2019. Waititi also voices a droid bounty hunter in the show named IG-11 and he directed the series’ first season finale. 

Recent Projects:

In 2020 Taika portrayed Ratcatcher in the DC superhero film The Suicide Squad, which was released in 2021. Also in August 2021, he played the character Antwan, the antagonist of the action comedy movie Free Guy.

Furthermore, Waititi co-created the comedy series Reservation Dogs which follows the lives of a group of indigenous Oklahoma teens and comprises the main cast directors, producers, and writers, of indigenous peoples. It premiered an FX to Positive reviews.

He also executive produced, directed, and starred as a Blackbeard in the HBO Max comedy called Our Flag Means Death. 

One of the biggest recent projects and most talked about ones that Taika was behind was writing and directing the superhero film titled Thor: Love and Thunder, the sequel to Thor: Ragnarok. It erupted in 2021 and was just released in July 2022. 

When Marvel announced the fourth Thor film in 2019, Taika knew he wanted to bring some new things to the table, considering his reinvention of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor as a looser more comedic hero was a success. For this next film, Taika wanted Thor to face his biggest challenge yet, a mid-life crisis. 

This type of innovation and brilliant ideas are some of the main reasons why Taika is so beloved in the entertainment industry. Before working on Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika also directed a feature film adaptation of the documentary Next Goal Wins. That film has been delayed and set for at least 2022 after actor Armie Hammer’s scenes were reshot with Will Arnett. 

In terms of upcoming projects, Taika is set to direct a live-action film version of Akira and co-write a sequel What We Do in the Shadows, entitled We’re Wolves. He also co-writes the live-action Star Wars film. 

Moreover, Taika is said to be writing, directing, and executive producing two animated series for Netflix based on Roald Dahl’s children’s book entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel. one of which is based on the stories and one focused on the novel’s Oompa Loompa roles.

Taika has also signed to executive producing and directing the Showtime series The Auteur as well as writing and directing a movie based on Flash Gordon for 20th Century Studios.

In 2021, it was reported he would be adapting The incall into a feature movie. By the sound of all that it seems like Taika Waititi is going to be super busy. 

Awards & Accolades:

Taika started working in the entertainment industry from an early age and has won 6 awards and more than 27 nominations for his impressive work. 

Wins:

• 3 Academy Awards for Jojo Rabbit for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
• 1 Grammy Award in 2021 for Jojo Rabbit in the category of Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
• 1 Independent Spirit Award in 2022 for Reservation Dogs for Best New Scripted Series.
• 1 Writers Guild of America Award in 2020 for Jojo Rabbit in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

Nominations:

• 2 Academy Awards for Best Live Action Short Film and Best Movie. 
• 3 Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for Jojo Rabit in the categories of Best Movie, Best Comedy, and Best Adapted Screenplay. 
• 3 Critics’ Choice Television Awards for all Best Comedy Series. 
• 2 Directors Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Directing.
• 1 Golden Globe Awards for Jojo Rabbit for Best Motion Film – Musical or Comedy in 2020.
• 2 Primetime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Comedy Series and Impressive Character Voice-Over Performance. 
• 2 Producers Guild of America Awards.
• 2 Satellite Awards for Best Actor – Motion Film Musical or Comedy and Best Adapted Screenplay.
• 1 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
• 5 Writers Guild of America Awards in several categories for his works in Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows, Reservation Dogs, and Reservation Dogs in an episode of the show. 

Personal Life:

Taika Waititi began his relationship with Chelsea Winstanley who is a film producer and director from New Zealand. In 2011 the couple got married and welcomed their first child a daughter Te Hinekāhu in 2012. Later in August of 2015, their second daughter named Matewa Kiritapu was born. 

The couple also worked together on several film and TV projects such as What We Do in the Shadows, Jojo Rabbit, and some others. But their marriage did not last long and after spending almost 6 years together, Taika and Chelsea separated in 2018. 

House:

Taika Watiti has a net worth of $13 million and the filmmaker has been able to spend millions of dollars on his expensive lifestyle or real estate. Taika and his es wife Chelsea bought a luxury house in 2018 which is located in one of the beautiful areas of Los Angeles’ Studio City. 

The house features 4 bedrooms with 3 bathrooms, a swimming pool, and a lavish backyard, as well as spans over 2,323 square feet of space. In 2021 the former couple listed the mansion on the market for about $2.75 million. 

The house was previously owned by filmmaker Marti Noxon who is known for his work in a couple of super hit movies such as Guide to Divorce, Girlfriends, UnREAL, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among others.