Taika Waititi has lashed out at film critics on social media following the poor commercial performance of Klara and the Sun, his adaptation of a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film opened in 16th place at the North American box office before suffering a further sharp fall in its second weekend.
In a Halloween post, Waititi portrayed critics as people who had abandoned ambitions to become artists. He also linked their response to the reception of his earlier film Jojo Rabbit, dismissing those reviewers as irrelevant, disconnected and obsolete. His comments came as Klara and the Sun faced negative reviews alongside low ticket sales.
Waititi highlighted the difference between audience and critical responses on Rotten Tomatoes. The review aggregation site showed an audience score of 74%, compared with a critics’ rating of 26% drawn from 90 reviews. He said he had not read reviews directed at himself or his peers for almost 15 years, while maintaining that he paid attention to the public’s response.
Klara and the Sun reportedly cost $44m (£32.8m) to produce. Its first North American weekend brought in $701,000 (£523,000) across 880 venues, equivalent to less than $800 (£596) per cinema. On its second weekend, takings fell 79% to $145,000 (£108,000), despite the film remaining in a similar number of venues.
Other films targeting comparable audiences performed substantially better. Wicker earned $5.7m during its North American opening weekend at 1,471 venues, averaging $3,906 per cinema. You Can See Everything, the acclaimed documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, collected $18.7m in its second weekend, taking its cumulative earnings to $63.8m.
The British opening also produced weak figures for Waititi’s film. Klara and the Sun took £176,000 from 368 venues over its first weekend in the UK, with a reported average of £477 per venue.
The Guardian’s chief critic, Peter Bradshaw, awarded the film one star, criticising its performances, humour and attempts to provoke an emotional response. Bradshaw had also strongly disliked Waititi’s 2019 film Jojo Rabbit, objecting to its treatment of its subject matter and its emphasis on childhood charm and optimism.
Other reviews were similarly unfavourable. Writing in the Observer, Wendy Ide argued that the adaptation sacrificed the novel’s depth in favour of conspicuous quirkiness. The Los Angeles Times’ Tim Grierson also criticised Waititi’s approach, describing the film’s sentimentality as calculated and increasingly exasperating.
