The Aporia · ‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster

‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster

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Pulver, A. (2026, November 2). ‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/nov/02/taika-waititi-lambasts-critics-after-klara-and-the-sun-box-office-disaster

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Quick Summary

Taika Waititi criticized film critics after his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” underperformed at the box office. The movie earned only $701,000 in its opening weekend compared to production costs of $44 million. On Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it a 74% score while critics rated it just 26%. Waititi’s social media post attacked critics for negatively reviewing his work, including “Jojo Rabbit,” and accused them of being out-of-touch and irrelevant.

Written by AI on 2026-11-02, from this article's own text only (the story summary below draws on all the coverage).

AI analysis

Story summary

Taika Waititi has criticized film critics following the poor box-office performance of his latest movie, Klara and the Sun, based on a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. In social media posts on Halloween, Waititi called critics "sad lost souls" who couldn't become artists and instead became reviewers. He also pointed out that while the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 74%, the critic score is only 26% based on 90 reviews. The film cost $44 million to produce but earned just $701,000 in its first weekend from 880 venues, averaging less than $800 per theater and placing it at 16th place among new releases. Waititi defended his work by highlighting the stark contrast between audience reception and critical reviews, stating he has not read a review targeting him or his peers for nearly 15 years but still values the opinions of regular moviegoers.

Written for “Taika Waititi Criticizes Critics” on 2026-11-02, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Why this leaning score

The model judged this article politically coded and scored it +0.35, but all 2 of its quote(s) are attributed speech - words the article quotes from someone, not the article's own narration, so the score is not published.

Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.

Leaning score withheld for article 122969: attributed speech only · logged 2026-11-02

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Claims extracted

sentences that state something as happening or true

Uncertain

0 of 13 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")

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withheld

no quote in the article backed the model's score

Publisher signals

66/100

The Guardian's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.

Outlets on this story

Entertainment

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articles that frame the event the way this one does

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Publisher

The Guardian · 2850 article(s) · 6 correction(s) detected

Running correction rate · 6 correction(s)

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Who wrote this

Andrew Pulver

4 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction

🔮 In a post on social media, Waititi wrote: “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.”

2026-11-02 · assertive framing · ‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster

🔮 She crossed back into more serious work with the West German drama The Death Ship, opposite Horst Buchholz (who would go on to appear in cowboy classic The Magnificent Seven).

2026-10-29 · assertive framing · Elke Sommer, prolific German star of A Shot in the Dark and And Then There Were None, dies aged 85

🔮 John Davidson, the Tourette syndrome campaigner whose outburst at the British Academy film awards in February led to a crisis for Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and the BBC, will attend the Bafta Scotland awards and watch the ceremony from a separate “relaxed” space.

2026-10-01 · assertive framing · Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson to watch Bafta Scotland awards in separate ‘relaxed’ space

Also by Andrew Pulver

Elke Sommer, prolific German star of A Shot in the Dark and And Then There Were None, dies aged 85

2026-10-29 · The Guardian

Alex Gibney says Universal ‘wavered’ over releasing Elon Musk documentary

2026-10-12 · The Guardian

Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson to watch Bafta Scotland awards in separate ‘relaxed’ space

2026-10-01 · The Guardian

Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

Topics

Klara North American Rotten Tomatoes Sun Waititi

Subjects

Klara PERSON · 5× Sun ORG · 4× Waititi PERSON · 4× North American NORP · 3× Elizabeth Holmes PERSON · 1× Guardian ORG · 1× Jojo Rabbit PERSON · 1× Kazuo Ishiguro PERSON · 1× Rotten Tomatoes ORG · 1× Taika Waititi PERSON · 1×

Narrative

Other reviewers have been equally negative towards Klara and the Sun: in the Observer, Wendy Ide called it “a thin and cloying thing that strips away any profundity in the source material and replaces it with self-conscious quirkiness”, while the LA Times’ Tim Grierson said: “[Waititi] lacquers the film with a calculated gooeyness that’s stultifying before it becomes downright exasperating”.

framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-11-02

2026-11-02 · The Guardian

‘Sad lost souls’: Taika Waititi lambasts critics after Klara and the Sun box-office disaster · assertive framing

Claims (13 extracted, 0 hedged)

Taika Waititi has launched a furious broadside at “critics” following the disastrous commercial performance of Klara and the Sun, his new film adapted from a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. asserted

Waititi → launch → novel

In a post on social media, Waititi wrote: “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.” asserted

who → write → dreams

He added: “The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit … Irrelevant. asserted

who → add → Rabbit

Pointing to the disparity of the film’s audience and critics’ score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, which currently stands at 74% for the former and 26% (from 90 reviews) for the latter, Waititi also wrote: “I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years. asserted

I → point → years

But I do listen to the people.” asserted

I → listen → people

Klara and the Sun, which cost a reported $44m (£32.8m) to make, achieved a dismal $701,000 (£523,000) on its first weekend at the North American box office, working out at just under $800 (£596) per theatre from 880 venues. asserted

which → cost → venues

It came in at 16th place, well below other similarly aimed films such as Wicker, which opened with $5.7m in North America from 1471 venues at an average of $3,906 per cinema. asserted

which → come → cinema

In contrast, You Can See Everything, the celebrated documentary about Elizabeth Holmes scored $18.7m on its second weekend and has reached a cumulative total of $63.8m. asserted

You → see → 63.8

In the UK, the film recorded comparable figures to its North American results, with an opening weekend of £176,000 from 368 venues, for an average of £477. asserted

film → record → 477

The Guardian’s chief critic Peter Bradshaw described Klara and the Sun as “unbearably mannered” and “unspeakably acted” in a one-star review, adding: “[It] is soft-centred sci-fi-lite, simultaneously demanding we laugh at its (unfunny) humour and wipe away a tear at its pass-agg poignancy.” asserted

we → describe → poignancy

Bradshaw also negatively reviewed Waititi’s 2019 film Jojo Rabbit, calling it a “terrible film … a pointless Hitler-spoofy YA adventure with a 12A certificate, obtusely accentuating little-kid cuteness and optimism amid the quaintly imagined non-horror.” asserted

Bradshaw → review → horror

it → call → gooeyness

Its second weekend at the North American box-office saw Klara and the Sun enter a steep decline, dropping 79% to $145,000 (£108,000) from a similar number of venues. asserted

Klara → see → venues