Taika Waititi lashed out at film critics on Instagram this week, calling them “sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams” after his latest film, Klara and the Sun, drew negative reviews.

The director behind Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Love and Thunder posted an emoji-filled message tied to an image that captured audience reaction to the live-action book adaptation. He took aim at the reviewers who walked away unimpressed, even as he insisted he had stopped reading them years ago.

“I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years,” he wrote, followed by a series of emojis. “But I do listen to the people.”

The scores tell a split story. Klara and the Sun has struggled since its October 23, 2026, release. Rotten Tomatoes shows mostly positive reactions from viewers at 74%, but its Tomatometer has sunk to a rotten 26%. Its IMDb Metascore is just as bleak, at 30 out of 100 after 27 reviews.

Waititi did not stop at the numbers. He pointed his 2.8 million Instagram followers toward the critics who did not enjoy the story, and he framed the attack around the Halloween weekend.

“So, 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. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit.”

That last line is where the post gets murky. Jojo Rabbit, his 2019 World War II-era dark comedy and his first feature since Thor: Ragnarok in 2017, is not exactly a film that was buried by critics. It holds an 81% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Its IMDb score is a middling 58, but some of the reviews listed there are strongly positive. It is unclear which negative reaction Waititi is referring to.

The box office is where the real damage shows. Per box office tracking data, the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel has managed only 1.7 million worldwide after two weekends in theaters. That is a weak return for a project with a reported budget somewhere between $20 million and $40 million.

The rollout also shrank before audiences ever had a chance to find it. The film was expected to debut in around 2,000 theaters last week, but Sony reportedly scaled that plan back to an 800-theater debut. The studio then stopped reporting box office earnings for the film over the weekend.

Those who did see it seem to have had a decent time, even as the wider public stayed away. The film follows Klara, an Artificial Friend played by Jenna Ortega, who wants nothing more than to find the perfect home. When she meets Josie, played by Mia Tharia, the two sense a kindred spirit in each other. Josie has a fraught relationship with her mother, played by Amy Adams, and the family has suffered great loss. Klara’s innocent wonder and unwavering loyalty begin to heal them.

Then came the sign-off. Waititi closed his post with a blunt verdict on the critics who panned his film: “Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.” He added a trash can emoji, a crying face, and a heart hands emoji.

The timing is hard to ignore. Waititi was previously set to helm a Star Wars movie, but after six years of trying to get that project off the ground, he announced earlier this month that it was “on ice.” He once said his take on the universe was trying to harness more of the fun from the original trilogy. Now he is fighting a public battle with critics while his next big swing remains in limbo.

What happens next for Klara and the Sun is unclear. The film’s reviews are split between audience goodwill and critical rejection, and its box office is struggling to justify the attention. Waititi, for his part, has made clear where he stands. He is not interested in the verdict of the people he calls irrelevant.