Taika Waititi's "Klara and the Sun" Bombs With $725,000 Opening: What Happened?

Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s“Klara and the Sun”arrived in theaters to a $725,000 opening weekend, and that number comes after Sony Pictures reduced the film’s theater count. Jenna Ortega stars as Klara, an artificial friend purchased by a lonely teenager named Josie, who is dying from complications of a genetic modification procedure. The novel is heavy stuff: genetic modification, class stratification, a dying girl’s fate, and Klara’s quiet faith that the sun can heal her.

Critics argue the film traded that bleak existentialism for Hollywood sentimentality, with relentless whimsy standing in for the book’s harder questions. Reviews point to lines like“It’s just a burning ball of fire that can’t think or feel”as a marker of how far the movie drifts from Ishiguro’s tone. Michael Giacchino composed the score, and Mia Tharia plays Josie, but strong names behind and in front of the camera didn’t translate into ticket sales.

The bigger conversation is about adaptation itself. Hollywood loves a dark literary property until it has to commit to the darkness on screen. Do you stay faithful to a story that refuses to comfort the reader, or do you soften it for a wider audience and risk pleasing nobody? That’s the question this film accidentally answered. So what do you think: should directors protect the bleak endings, or is a little hope a good thing? Tell us in the comments.