Even after an Oscar for Jojo Rabbit, Taika Waititi is still testing himself creatively with Brawl Stars

Taika Waititi has built a career on doing the unexpected, whether that means making a Marvel blockbuster like Thor: Ragnarök to a comedy or earn an Oscar for Jojo Rabbitwhich won best adapted screenplay at the Oscars 2020. Now he steps into a completely different arena with Brawl Starswhere he wrote the animated launch trailer for the game's 101st Brawler, Najia – a puzzle-obsessed character tied to the mysterious Pyramid Quest attraction in Starr Park. It's a collaboration that may seem like a departure from his usual work, but in practice works with Brawl Stars is actually on brand with his tendency to explore new creative spaces rather than settling into the ones he's already familiar with.

That curiosity was at the center of a recent conversation, when GameRant spoke with Taika Waititi about his involvement in bringing Najia to life through the animated short. From writing the trailer to working within the established world of Brawl Starsthe process offered him a different kind of creative challenge, one that leaned less on traditional filmmaking and more on adapting to a medium he was largely unfamiliar with before. Still, for Waititi, working with Brawl Stars was ultimately about seeing if the gaming industry was a space where his style could naturally fit – and as it turns out, he thinks so.

Taika Waititi's introduction to gaming shows why Brawl Stars was a creative test

Part of that makes Waititi's involvement with Brawl Stars so interesting is that, by his own admission, he wasn't that aware of what gaming has become in the last few decades before his collaboration with Supercell. He wasn't completely inexperienced with video games, but when he was introduced to the wider gaming world through a family member, he learned that it was a much bigger giant than he had first perceived it to be. That's really what makes it easier to see why working with Najia's animated trailer for Brawl Stars was not just another project for him, but something closer to a creative experiment. As he explained:

“I was introduced to Brawl Stars through my brother-in-law, and he's really big into games. He knows everything about games. It's crazy. But I was amazed at how games have evolved over the years, and they've become deeper in terms of storytelling and more cinematic as well. And you can find so many different games now, from racing to peaceful, weird, fun things, where anything happens, where everything happens. and you're just sitting in a world, and you have to tap every piece of bark on a tree before you can go into another tree. It's just amazing that you can have so many things.”

It's actually refreshing to hear when a celebrated filmmaker like Waititi learns how deep the gaming rabbit hole goes and comes out the other side with an appreciation for it, if not for the simple fact that it opens up the industry to an even wider range of possibilities than those it's already exploring. But being the storyteller that he is, his appreciation for it wasn't just about how games are played, but the stories they tell and the lore embedded deep within their carefully crafted universes. And approaching it from the outside, he saw his work on Najia's animated short as a chance to engage with that form of storytelling that works very differently from film.

But that unusualness almost worked to his advantage. Without being locked into expectations of how games should present their stories, Waititi could watch Brawl Stars more holistically, realizing how its story extends beyond the game itself. That realization became one of the more surprising aspects of the process for him, especially as he began to understand how players build relationships with characters and lore outside of just gameplay. When asked what excites him most about storytelling in games today, he answered candidly:

“Well, what's interesting about Brawl Stars is that it is not necessarily in the game. All knowledge happens outside of the game, which is another world in itself. It's just something I never got. I never understood before that there is a world where people learn about someone's characters and their connections outside of the game, which blew me away. It's just a completely different approach to storytelling. It's like watching a movie, but you find out everything after you watch the movie when you go and research it. And I don't know what it's like in terms of the actual storytelling around movies or series or anything like that, but it's just an interesting thing to think about, that you can have these things coexist, and it's not just about this one way of presenting a story anymore. But yeah, I think the adaptation of games is getting pretty exciting.”

Taika Waititi may still be open to future gaming projects

It's easy to see why someone like Waititi is so excited about today's games, as most of them are no longer just about achieving simple objectives or getting from one platform to another without going down, but about moving through thought-provoking stories and massive worlds that are just as deep (if not more so) than those that play out on the screen. But because games approach storytelling in such a different, perhaps more layered way than movies usually do, Waititi saw it as a challenge he wanted to take on, to the point where he's willing to explore the idea of working more with games in the future:

“Yeah, absolutely. I think part of the reason I started doing this with Supercell is because I wanted to explore the idea of this being a bigger thing, or other characters, just to see how far I could go with it. In some ways, I feel like this was kind of like testing the waters and seeing if this is a space I could exist in. And yes, I think it is.”

Waititi seemed to indicate that he would at least be willing to work with Brawl Stars again in the future, but it seems likely that he considers his work on the mobile game to be testing the waters for gaming in general. Given his obvious, albeit newfound, fascination with the world of gaming, combined with his love of great storytelling and his openness to exploring new creative spaces, Waititi likely hasn't closed the door on future projects that potentially go beyond a single animated short.

For someone who has already achieved recognition at the highest level of filmmaking, that willingness to keep testing himself stands out. Instead of relying on what has worked in the past, Waititi continues to look for new ways to challenge his creativity, even if it means stepping into uncharted territory like video games. And about Brawl Stars is any indication, that approach may lead him to places that feel as natural to him as the films that made his name. Perhaps the industry shouldn't be surprised if it eventually sees Taika Waititi's name pop up in the credits of one of its biggest titles, but time, and the director's willingness to continue exploring that space, will ultimately tell.