Taika Waititi’s ‘Klara and the Sun’ Sets October 2026 Release, First Trailer Screened: “Looks Like An Expensive Flop”

UPDATE: Sony has announced that Sony Pictures will release Klara and the Sun on October 23, 2026. A trailer was shown at CinemaCon, and Jeff Sneider describing, in unflattering terms, what he saw:

“Klara and the Sun” trailer is set to "I Got You Babe." Jenna is playing a robot who has to help a family heal. Gotta say, this looks like an expensive flop. It's selling "sweetness" (lots of yellow) when it needs to sell less quirk and more emotion. I loved JOJO RABBIT but I'm officially nervous about this one...

EARLIER: Five months ago, Taika Waititi’s “Klara and the Sun” finally completed post-production, and with that the MPA gave it a PG-13 rating. Some had predicted ‘Klara’ would surface in 2024, but that never materialized. The same whispers suggested a 2025 release — nope. Now it looks like 2026 will be the year we get Waititi’s latest.

Watch this film do the same bare minimum and get the same rollout as Waititi’s last one — “Next Goal Wins” — it’s probably gonna do TIFF and then flop upon release. This film has been too delayed to suddenly turn out to be great.

Dahvi Waller (“Mrs. America”) penned the original draft of ‘Klara,’ adapting Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about an Artificial Friend who closely observes humans while waiting to be chosen, with Waititi potentially having rewritten some, if not all, of it.

The film stars Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, and Natasha Lyonne. Ishiguro and Waititi don’t quite gel in my book. On paper, it’s one of the weirder director/author partnerships in recent years. We’ll see how it turns out, as post-production seems to be continuing.

Waititi has been on a bit of a cold streak; he struck out with “Thor: Love & Thunder” in 2022, and his last film, “Next Goal Wins,” also plagued with delays, was shot in 2019 and finally released in 2023 to very mixed reviews. His most recent outing, an Apple TV-produced “Time Bandits” reboot, was recently canceled after just one season.

Yet, Waititi continues to pile up projects. Last month, it was announced that he would adapt “Barn 8” for the big screen. He might also still be making a “Star Wars” movie, not to mention a live-action remake of “Flash Gordon.” He also has two additional projects (“The Incal” and “James”) for which we haven’t heard much of an update since their announcement.