On Oct. 31, Taika Waititi posted on Instagram that the critics who gave Sony's "Klara and the Sun" a 26 percent Rotten Tomatoes score are "sad lost souls" who "became critics," signing off with "Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin." Per Deadline, the film, which cost a reported $20M, opened to $701K, and Sony has now stopped reporting its grosses, with the last figure around $1M.
The standard play. When the product fails, the review becomes the product. "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," Sir Irrelevant writes. The people, by the film's own math, are 73 percent. The critics are 26 percent. The box office is the third poll he will not quote, because the box office is the people, and the people, as it turns out, are the ones who didn't show up.
Meanwhile Sony is doing the thing no director puts in a statement. The studio quietly stopped reporting the movie's numbers, the last figure around $1M against the reported $20M budget. That is not a scheduling tweak. That is an exit plan, executed while the director is on Instagram calling people obsolete. The film is about an android that learns to love the sun. The PR machine learned to deflect. Same lesson, same week.
A man standing in the wreckage of a $20M sunburn, blaming the weather report.
YOUR TURN: The audience gave the film 73 percent and then walked out of it. Which number is more honest?
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