Momoa created the series with Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett, who, per a press release, also shares native Hawaiian heritage. The Aquaman star also wrote and produced the series, which marks a first for him on television. (Momoa has lent his pen to film projects like The Road To Paloma and Aquaman: The Last Kingdom.) The rest of the cast, which includes actors Temuera Morrison, Luciane Buchanan, Te Ao o Hinepehinga, Cliff Curtis, newcomer Kaina Makua, is predominantly Polynesian (excepting, most likely, the actors playing the colonists).
The series will also feature a significant amount of dialogue spoken in the Hawaiian language, which Sibbett described as “something from the beginning that was really important for us” in an interview with GQ earlier this year. “We just didn’t know if it was something that anybody would ever do. But the truth is, for us, even though this is a true story, it feels like a world-building show. It feels like we’re presenting something that’s been unseen, and people don’t know much about it.” Learning the language, Momoa said, had the added benefit of making him realize he had been sort of mumbling his entire life. “It’s so much more involved with the mouth,” he explained. “And Olelo Hawaiian is the most beautiful language, it was just really hard for my mouth to move that way. But I busted my ass.”
Chief Of War premieres on Apple TV+ on August 1. New episodes will arrive weekly through September 19.
