Taika Waititi responded to the weak critical reception of “Klara and the Sun” with an Oct. 31 Instagram post calling critics “irrelevant” and “out of touch.” The director posted the message defending his film after a string of negative reviews and an even rougher box office run.
“Klara and the Sun” hit theaters on Oct. 23, a little more than a week after its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, and the critical response was rough from the start. Its Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score has hovered between 24% and 28%, with IGN reporting 26% and Variety putting it at 28% when the post went up. That makes it the worst-reviewed film of Waititi’s directing career, below 2023’s “Next Goal Wins” at 46%. IGN also reported a Metascore of 30 out of 100 based on 27 reviews.
Waititi’s Instagram post on the “Klara and the Sun” reviews
Waititi, who has 2.8 million Instagram followers, did not hold back in his post, which paired the film’s poster with its Rotten Tomatoes audience score.
“I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years. But I do listen to the people. So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus became critics. The same people who also hated ‘Jojo Rabbit.’ Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin,” he wrote, according to Variety.
The caption came with a trash can emoji, a crying face emoji and a heart hands emoji, according to IGN.
The director pointed to audience numbers as a counterpoint to the critical panning. The audience score shown in his post was 78%, and outlets have since reported it anywhere from 74% to 78%. It is worth noting that score rests on a much smaller pool than the critics score, with ComicBookMovie.com pointing out it was based on just over 100 verified ratings.
It is also worth noting that Waititi’s claim about “Jojo Rabbit” does not match the record. That 2019 film holds an 81% critics score and a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and Waititi won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for it. Its reviews were not universally glowing, with a Metascore of 58, but “hated” is a stretch.
What the film’s box office numbers show
“Klara and the Sun” struggled commercially alongside its critical reception. Sony originally planned to open the film in roughly 1,900 to 2,000 theaters, but cut the rollout to 880 North American locations before opening weekend. The film opened to about $701,000, according to The Numbers, while Variety estimated $720,000 and a No. 15 finish in the U.S. It also opened at No. 13 in Australia with $257,000.
The second weekend was worse. The film took in $157,555, a drop of roughly 78%, which works out to about $179 per theater, per The Numbers. IGN, citing Box Office Mojo, reported the film had earned about $1.7 million worldwide after two weekends. Deadline then reported that Sony stopped publishing box office figures for the film, though third-party trackers still show data. Its planned theatrical release in Spain was also reportedly scrapped. Reported budgets range from $20 million, per Deadline, to as high as $44 million.
Background on the film and Waititi’s recent projects
“Klara and the Sun” is adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel of the same name, a story set in a dystopian future, according to Variety. Jenna Ortega plays Klara, an Artificial Friend, alongside Mia Tharia as Josie and Amy Adams as Josie’s mother, Chrissie.
Ortega has taken the opposite approach to reviews. She told Vogue she avoids reading them because doing so “would send me into a psychosis of some sort.”
Waititi also addressed the role of artificial intelligence in the story, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “There’s a big discussion about AI coming in: Will people use it? How much will they use it? I know it’s probably inevitable that we end up using it in our industry, but as long as it’s used by humans as a tool, as opposed to a replacement. I don’t want to replace humans. I want to work with them.”
The critic jab caps a rough month for Waititi. Earlier in October, he said his long-gestating Star Wars film was on ice after six years of trying to get it made, according to IGN.
No further comment from Waititi or Sony on the film’s box office performance or critical reception had been reported as of publication.
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