Klara and the Sun arrived with an Oscar-winning director, two globally known actors and a Booker-longlisted novel behind it. In its opening weekend, it made $701K from 880 US locations — a theater average below $800.
The failure is instructive for release planners because the film was not expensive by current studio standards, and Sony had already limited its downside.
A cheap misfire by design
Taika Waititi directed. Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams star. Sony co-financed the picture 50% with Spyglass and TSG, and insiders put the net cost in the high $20Ms before global P&A. One budget package showed a $44.3M direct cost, a $4.4M contingency and $7.55M in New Zealand subsidies. The studio cut its release from wide to moderate after London reviews, and marketing spend came in under $30M worldwide.
So this is not a $150M write-off. It is a controlled loss that still shows how quickly a critic-dependent film can unravel.
The numbers behind the miss
- Opening: $701K domestic, 880 locations, under $800 per theater.
- Critics: 25% on Rotten Tomatoes; The Guardian called it “a sentimental mess.”
- Audiences: 78% RT audience score, but exits were 69% positive and only 48% definite recommend.
- Who showed: women over 25 at 33%; under-25s at just 19%.
Why the package still missed
Waititi’s track record is strong: Thor: Ragnarok earned $855.3M worldwide, Thor: Love and Thunder $760M, and Jojo Rabbit $93M. But Klara and the Sun is not a Marvel ride. It lives or dies on reviews, and 25% from critics forced the studio to stop scaling.
Even the audience score wasn’t enough. One source told the trade that Ortega fans “were not seeing this as their movie.” The film wasn’t made and marketed as FUBU — “For Us, By Us” — the quality that helped A24’s Backrooms reach $400.6M worldwide this year. Ortega’s social reach did not translate into a sense of ownership for her fan base.
Testing had looked salvageable: the more upbeat revised ending scored 87% positive, according to one source. But broad positives don’t equal momentum. Only 48% would definitely recommend, and under-25s stayed away.
What release planners should take away
Don’t green-light a media plan on names and test scores alone. For a prestige or auteur title, use pre-release gates that measure conviction: definite recommend by demo, not top-line positive. If the core audience doesn’t claim the film as theirs, treat the opening as high risk.
Review scores can still override a careful rollout. But the cost-side discipline Sony used — co-financing, a moderate release, capped marketing — kept this from becoming a balance-sheet disaster.
Source: Deadline
