Oscar-winning filmmaker Taika Waititi lashed out at film reviewers over Halloween weekend, dismissing them as "sad lost souls" and "failed artists" following the dismal theatrical rollout of his sci-fi drama Klara and the Sun. Starring Jenna Ortega as an android companion and adapted from Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed 2021 novel, the Sony Pictures release opened in North American theaters on October 23, 2026, to meager ticket sales and scathing notices before suffering a steep second-weekend decline.

Posting on Instagram alongside an image of the movie's poster and its Rotten Tomatoes audience rating, Waititi defended his work by contrasting critical reaction with viewer sentiment. According to Variety, Waititi wrote that he had not read a review aimed at himself or his peers in nearly 15 years, insisting instead that he listens "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 settled, and became critics," Waititi wrote in the social media post, as reported by The Guardian. "The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit. Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin."

A Bleak Box Office Run and Conflicting Tallies

Waititi's public broadside arrived as industry trackers tallied the financial fallout of Klara and the Sun. Following negative early notices out of its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival earlier in October, Sony scaled back the movie's planned wide domestic footprint to 880 theaters, according to Deadline. According to The Daily Beast, the studio also canceled the film's planned theatrical release in Spain.

Box office figures across entertainment outlets show slight variations depending on when estimates and final tallies were recorded, though all confirm a severe commercial misfire. Variety reported that the film debuted at No. 15 at the domestic box office with $720,000 across 880 locations, while The Guardian and The Daily Beast cited an opening weekend haul of $701,000 to $701,059 and a No. 16 chart placement, averaging just under $800 per theater. In the United Kingdom, the opening weekend brought in £176,000 from 368 venues, averaging £477 per screen.

The film's second weekend in North American theaters saw audiences evaporate further, with outlets presenting differing figures on the severity of the drop. According to The Guardian and The Independent, domestic ticket sales fell 79% in its sophomore frame to approximately $145,000. Meanwhile, SlashFilm reported an even steeper 93.6% second-weekend collapse to $45,000 on 880 screens—an average of $51 per theater—characterizing that figure as the largest second-weekend drop for a new narrative feature release, behind only the concert movie Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience (94.9%).

Estimates regarding the production's overall cost and cumulative global haul also vary across trade reports. While Deadline and SlashFilm cited a reported $20 million production budget, IGN noted a broader reported range of $20 million to $40 million, and The Guardian pointed to a reported $44 million (£32.8 million) price tag. Worldwide box office receipts stood at approximately $1.74 million according to The Daily Beast and The Independent, whereas Yahoo Entertainment (citing TheWrap) placed the global tally closer to $1.1 million.

Why Reviewers Rejected the Ishiguro Adaptation

Set in a dystopian future, Klara and the Sun follows Klara (Ortega), a solar-powered Artificial Friend purchased by a mother (Amy Adams) to serve as a companion for her gravely ill teenage daughter, Josie (Mia Tharia), whose health is failing after a genetic enhancement procedure. The ensemble cast also includes Natasha Lyonne and Steve Buscemi.

While Ishiguro's novel was widely praised in 2021 for its quiet, meditative inquiry into human consciousness and mortality, major critics argued that Waititi's signature quirky sensibility clashed with the source material. In a two-star review for The Independent, chief film critic Clarisse Loughrey called the movie "both a betrayal of Ishiguro's quiet, meditative vision and a poor imitation of Waititi's own, pre-Marvel work," noting that the adaptation stripped away the protagonist's observational nature in favor of generic sentimentality.

Other major publications were equally harsh:

  • The Guardian: Chief critic Peter Bradshaw awarded the movie one star, calling it "unbearably mannered" and "soft-centred sci-fi-lite, simultaneously demanding we laugh at its (unfunny) humour and wipe away a tear at its pass-agg poignancy."
  • Los Angeles Times: Reviewer Tim Grierson wrote that Waititi "lacquers the film with a calculated gooeyness that's stultifying before it becomes downright exasperating."
  • The Observer: Critic Wendy Ide described the project as "a thin and cloying thing that strips away any profundity in the source material and replaces it with self-conscious quirkiness."
  • The New York Times: Critic Ben Kenigsberg labeled the release a "saccharine, yet oddly humorless, film."

The Critics vs. Audience Divide on Rotten Tomatoes

Central to Waititi's Instagram rebuttal was the wide gap between professional reviewers and ticket-buying moviegoers on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Because aggregator percentages fluctuate as additional reviews and user ratings are logged, contemporaneous media snapshots captured slightly shifting numbers over the Halloween weekend.

Variety reported that Waititi shared an image highlighting a 78% audience score alongside a 28% critics score—marking the lowest critical rating of the director's career. Other outlets, including Deadline, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast, recorded the critics' approval rating at 26% (based on 90 reviews), while noting audience scores oscillating between 73%, 74%, and 76%.

In his post, Waititi equated the critical drubbing of Klara and the Sun to the reception of his 2019 World War II satire Jojo Rabbit, in which he portrayed an imaginary Adolf Hitler. While Jojo Rabbit did draw pointed criticism from some reviewers including Bradshaw—who called it a "pointless Hitler-spoofy YA adventure"—the 2019 film was broadly embraced by the critical establishment. It holds an 81% critics score and a 91% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it earned Waititi the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

What the Flop Means for Waititi and Jenna Ortega

The commercial failure of Klara and the Sun compounds a challenging theatrical stretch for Waititi outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While his Marvel blockbusters Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder grossed $855 million and $761 million worldwide respectively, his lower-budget 2023 sports comedy Next Goal Wins also struggled with both reviewers and moviegoers, according to SlashFilm.

By contrast, lead star Jenna Ortega has taken a markedly detached approach to the film's reception and financial metrics. As noted by Variety, the Wednesday actress recently told Vogue that she avoids reading reviews of her projects because doing so "would send me into a psychosis of some sort." Ortega added that she instructs her team not to focus on box office updates with her because "I don't want it to become a numbers thing."

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Taika Waititi say about film critics?

In a Halloween-themed Instagram post, Waititi claimed he had not read a review in nearly 15 years and referred to critics as "sad lost souls who couldn't achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics." He concluded his message by calling reviewers "Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin."

Why do box office and Rotten Tomatoes numbers differ across reports?

Variations in opening weekend grosses ($701,059 vs. $720,000), chart ranks (No. 15 vs. No. 16), second-weekend drops ($145,000 vs. $45,000), and worldwide totals ($1.1 million vs. $1.74 million) reflect differences between early studio estimates, final weekend actuals, and the specific dates each publication pulled data. Similarly, Rotten Tomatoes scores shifted between 26% and 28% for critics and 73% to 78% for audiences as additional reviews and user ratings were submitted.

Did Sony reduce the theatrical release of Klara and the Sun?

Yes. Following harsh reviews after the film's October premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, Sony Pictures scaled back its planned wide North American footprint to 880 theaters and canceled its scheduled theatrical rollout in Spain.

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