Why ‘Klara And The Sun’ Failed At Box Office

At a time when the box office is rebounding, and embracing auteur-driven fare (i.e. Christopher Nolan’s near $1.8B grossing The Odyssey) as well as originality (a three-hour documentary about a delusional, scandalous tech titan called You Can See Everything), the star studded Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams starring Klara and the Sun failed to shine with a $701K domestic opening last weekend. The movie, booked at 880 locations, posted a theater average that was less than $800.

The Sony theatrical release, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 Booker Prize long-listed novel, comes from absurdist auteur Taika Waititi who after glamming, joking and grossing up Marvel’s Mightiest Avenger with Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 (the superhoe’s top earner with $855.3M WW), went on to win an adapted screenplay Oscar for the Hitler-adjacent politically offbeat comedy Jojo Rabbit in 2019. A niche New Zealand filmmaker known for his witty humor and heart, Waititi received the phone call to come work at Marvel following the 2016 Sundance world premiere of his movie The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Waititi also delivered the second highest-grossing Thor movie in Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022 ($760M).

Last Monday we walked into an AMC Century City press screening for Klara and the Sun with a tremendous amount of bias: We heard that the movie sat around for two years with Sony befuddled as to how to release it. We heard rumors about Sony being at odds with Waititi’s “free jazz” and “instinctual” auteur stylings on set (those are adjectives used by rival studio executives who adore and have worked with Waititi). Then there were the bloody reviews out of the London Film Festival (The Guardian called Klara and the Sun “a sentimental mess”).

I cried three times during the movie in which Ortega stars as the title character, a later-edition artificial robot. After wallowing unbought with her fellow robots in a gloomy city storefront, Klara is finally purchased by a sickly young girl, Josie (Mia Tharia), and her dominant mother, Chrissy (Amy Adams). The plan is for Klara to bring joy to Josie while looking out for her safety. They live in a bright sunny country home surrounded by golden wheat where Klara finds her footing in the real world; She is continually energized, bedazzled and worshiping the sun. Along the way, Chrissy comes to blows with Klara, but then learns the robot is the best thing in her daughter’s life. There’s also a bit of a twist in this emotional dystopian feature about how precious life can be.

How did a movie led by famous YA star Ortega (39M followers on social) and directed by an Oscar-winning filmmaker, lose its way in a booming box office?

The industry continually calls for more movies aimed at women. Here was one.

And how ironic: When Searchlight first rolled out Jojo Rabbit, there was concern over Waititi starring as Adolf Hitler in the movie, and befriending a young boy. A TIFF world premiere paved the way for the movie’s Oscar run, winning the festival’s awards-bellwether prize, the Grolsch People’s Choice Award, and goosestepping to 81% certified fresh with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 94% with audiences. Audiences ultimately realized with Jojo Rabbit that the movie wasn’t an affront and that it had something smart to say in divided political times. The final global box office was $93M.

We’ve seen pre-finance package documents on Klara and the Sun which showed a direct cost for the pic of $44.3M with a $4.4M contingency and anticipated New Zealand subsidies of $7.55M. Sony insiders swear the movie cost a net high $20M before global P&A spend. At either budget point, for an audacious movie, Klara and the Sun was economically priced with Spyglass and TSG covering 50% of the budget. The losses here on Klara and the Sun are ulimately minimal next to the $150M-plus that’s out there on the $160M net priced Tom Cruise starring Digger, which Alejandro Inarritu directed. Likewise, Sony minimized its exposure on the $30M-$42M costing Aaron Sorkin directed Mark Zuckerberg follow-up, The Social Reckoning, which was 50% co-funded by Alcon. We hear that movie, which grossed around $17M WW to date, will lose the Culver City studio a result in the single millions after all ancillaries.

The book Klara and the Sun was championed by Sony-based 3000 Pictures producer Elizabeth Gabler back in 2023. Waititi would discover the novel in an airport book store, and was wowed. That was serendipitous, as his moving sense of whimsy was the right fit for the novel. (Or was it?) The novel was quite melancholic and subtle; Ishiguro’s tomes are challenging to adapt (i.e. his dsytopian novel Never Let Me Go didn’t translate at the B.O. grossing $2.4M domestic and less than $10M WW). We’re told that Ishiguro even encouraged and supported Waititi throughout to make his own version of Klara and the Sun.

When there’s a box office misfire, the media quite often likes to uncover some sort of major mishap on set. Truth be told, Waititi turned the film in under his allotted shoot time and under budget. The pic began lensing in February 2024 at Silverlight Studios in Wānaka, NZ and continued in Auckland, wrapping April of that year.

The original ending of the movie described by one source close to the testing was “a bummer” and more faithful to the book’s ending. Waititi worked with Gabler in reshoots (which occurred in April 2025 with Ortega) to get the ending to a significantly more positive place. We’ve heard myriad reports about the pic’s testing; that the movie with the original ending came in at an 83% positive and with the revised upbeat ending, went up to 87% positive. Other sources in the know tell us that the test scores were “just fine” and that audiences didn’t buy into the tonality nor did they connect with the characters.

The minus of Klara and the Sun, per marketing sources, is that it’s not a widely-read book. Thus, there wasn’t a massive appeal for the IP. On the plus side, that provided more liberties for Waititi and Dahvi Waller in adapting.

Some have told us that Klara and the Sun sat around for two years with Sony up in arms about how they wanted to release it. Studio insiders counter that Klara and the Sun only sat around for a year. There was a discussion at one point to send it to Cannes back in May. However, Ortega’s production commitment on Season 3 of Netflix’s Wednesday was busy, lasting from late February this year through Sept. 30. We hear the actress — along with Waititi — were involved with marketing; Ortega suggested the light blue color background in the one-sheet.

The movie was finally dated for Oct. 23 as wide in Rentrak back in mid-April. Early tracking wasn’t promising. It landed in the low single digits when the film hit six weeks out before its release.

After Wednesday wrapped, Ortega became fully available to promote the film, traveling with Waititi and Adams to the London Film Festival, Rome Film Festival and a New York premiere. Ortega, Adams and Waititi also did the Drew Barrymore Show where the host championed the movie.

Ortega appeared on Seth Meyers, as well as the Today Show, alongside Adams. Ortega also posted about the film and her red carpet appearances in London and Rome on her IG.