Taika Waititi is an Oscar winner and a director who has delivered some beloved movies over the years. Unfortunately, his latest effort is going to go down as a box office flop. Starring Jenna Ortega, “Klara and the Sun” adapts some treasured sci-fi source material but something was evidently lost in translation.
Released by Sony Pictures over the weekend, “Klara and the Sun” opened to just $725,000 on 880 screens, giving it a lousy $824 per-screen average. It debuted well outside of the top ten and has little upside to speak of. Meanwhile, “Clayface” topped the box office and firmed up the future for James Gunn’s DC Universe with a $24 million domestic debut. That, along with the unexpected word-of-mouth success of A24’s “You Can See Everything,” overshadowed Waititi’s latest. It’s dead on arrival.
To make matters worse, it holds a very poor 25% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That means word of mouth is likely going to be bad if not nonexistent.
The movie is based on the 2021 book of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. It centers on Klara (Ortega), an Artificial Friend who meets Josie (Mia Tharia). Each immediately senses a kindred spirit in the other. Klara’s innocent wonder and unwavering loyalty begin to heal the family and bring light to Josie’s complicated world.
This makes two misfires in a row for Waititi. “Next Goal Wins” was a box office bomb in 2023 when it hit theaters, taking in less than $19 million worldwide on a $14 million budget. “Klara” reportedly carries a similarly small $20 million budget. A lower budget offers some security as that money can be made up on VOD/streaming, but it doesn’t bode very well for Waititi as a commercial director in Hollywood.
Taika Waititi might be on the verge of being put in director’s jail
Taika Waititi was on top of the world for a while. In 2017, he helped to save one of Marvel’s biggest franchises. “Thor: The Dark World” set a low bar for the Marvel Cinematic Universe but his reinvention of the franchise in 2017 with “Thor: Ragnarok” completely changed the game. It made more than $850 million worldwide and was a huge hit, one that remains one of the most roundly-acclaimed MCU movies to date. That made Waititi an A-list filmmaker, but repeating that success has been far more difficult in recent years.
“Jojo Rabbit” netted Waititi a win at the 2020 Oscars for his work on the screenplay while also earning nearly $90 million on a $14 million budget. While 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” took in over $760 million globally, it was a step down critically and commercially compared to “Ragnarok.” That was the start of the slide.
“Next Goal Wins” and “Klara and the Sun” makes it two disappointments in a row for Waititi. It doesn’t help that he directed episodes of “Time Bandits” in addition to serving as an executive producer on that show, which was canceled after just one season. He’s seemingly lost the juice.
Looking at it on paper, it appears as though Waititi is on the verge of winding up in director’s jail, if he’s not there already. Waititi was previously unsure if his “Star Wars” movie will get made. It almost surely won’t now. He needs to set up a sure thing and get back to movies like “What We Do in the Shadows” that helped establish him as a voice in the business in the first place.
“Klara and the Sun” is in theaters now.