Taika Waititi Calls Critics 'Sad Lost Souls' Over 'Klara and the Sun'

Taika Waititi has called film critics "sad lost souls" and "irrelevant" in an Instagram post defending "Klara and the Sun," his latest film as director. The post featured the movie's poster alongside its Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 78%. The critics' score, for comparison, stands at 28% — the lowest of Waititi's career to date, a run that includes the Oscar-winning "Jojo Rabbit."

"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," Waititi wrote in the caption. "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."

That's the full quote, and it does the work. Halloween-themed, bin-themed.

How bad is the box office?

The numbers explain the timing. "Klara and the Sun" opened last weekend at No. 15 in the US box office chart, grossing $720,000 from 880 locations — a figure that reads more like a platform release from a small distributor than a studio title from a director of Waititi's profile. Sony subsequently scaled back the film's theatrical footprint after reviewers panned the movie, with some describing it as "calamitous" and a "strained, whimsical comedy that's ruinous."

What is the film about?

The movie adapts Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel of the same name. It's set in a dystopian future, following an obsolete companion android — a robot built to keep a human company — as she tries to bond with her new owner, a young sick girl named Josie.

Jenna Ortega stars as the titular android. Waititi directs.

Does the cast read reviews?

Ortega, for her part, has opted out of the discourse entirely. In a recent Vogue interview, she said she doesn't read reviews of her films because "that would send me into a psychosis of some sort." She also skips the box office updates her team sends her, explaining: "I don't want it to become a numbers thing."

Given the numbers in question, that strategy looks wise.

Does the audience score matter?

Waititi's case rests on the gap between the two percentages: 78% approval from audiences against 28% from critics. It's a familiar argument, deployed whenever reviewers and ticket-buyers disagree, and it frames the Rotten Tomatoes critic score as an insiders' verdict that the public has already overruled.

Whether Sony's pared-back theatrical run allows that public to find the film is now the practical question.