Taika Waititi pushes back at film critics over Klara And The Sun, and elsewhere, the Digger fallout is ongoing as well. More here. The blame game has been going on for a little while now certainly with regard to the monumentally-expensive Tom Cruise-headlined Digger, as lots of high profile filmmakers come out and defend the ... Critics in the firing line over Digger, Klara And The Sun box office failures
Taika Waititi pushes back at film critics over Klara And The Sun, and elsewhere, the Digger fallout is ongoing as well. More here.
The blame game has been going on for a little while now certainly with regard to the monumentally-expensive Tom Cruise-headlined Digger, as lots of high profile filmmakers come out and defend the swing the movie undoubtedly took. Hopefully some of those voices will bang the drum for some independent movies, as well as a risky $250m Tom Cruise-centric production, but the point is still valid.
More recently, Taika Waiti’s latest film as director, Klara And The Sun, has also significantly underperformed in cinemas. With a cast including Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams and Natasha Lyonne, the Sony-backed feature has brought in just under $2m through box office tills. A significant commercial disappointment, whatever your feelings are towards the film itself.
As the post mortem for both features continues, the current target of blame is movie critics who weren’t particularly keen on either feature.
In the case of Digger, it’s podcaster Bill Burr who has aimed his ire at reviewers who weren’t that keen on the movie. He makes a valid point that films have been criticised before and gone on to be much loved, citing The Big Lebowski as an example. But the summation of his words was “these clucking critics. All they do is bitch. ‘Oh, another Marvel movie’, blah blah blah. And then whey they do something different, not only do they trash it, they don’t even understand it.”
Tame, though, compared to Taika Waititi’s feelings on Instagram, over the hostile response his latest movie got. A month or two back, Waititi was on the press tour for the widely-lauded tenth anniversary of the brilliant Hunt For The Wilderpeople.
Following Klara And The Sun, his tone has changed somewhat.
“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. 💥🎉🫶🏽💦 So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus became critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit 😂🤷🏽♂️ Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin. 🗑️”
That’d be the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit, to be clear.
Inevitably, I’ve got a bit of skin in the game here, but also, can fully comprehend that it stings like hell when you put a piece of creative work out that gets such a negative reception.
I don’t consider myself a film critic, although I am obviously a very sad and lost soul, so he’s got me there. My experience of critics though is that they’re people who actually love films, to the point where they’re willing to accept zero to little recompense to actually write about them. Nobody gets rich from movie criticism, to my eyes.
In the case of Waititi, as better people than me have pointed out, many of his films have been (rightly) praised by critics, and at the point when he was an independent, that was not without use to him.
As always, if people are enjoying Klara And The Sun and/or Digger, all power to them. I’m of the belief too that a film critic is of precious little difference around the release of, say, a big Marvel film or something like that. My admiration and respect absolutely goes to those though actively seeking out and highlighting interesting movies.
I’d also, though, suggest that the key issue with both of the films being discussed in this piece is not underpaid film critics. Other opinions, as always, are available.
