Jenna Ortega’s New Sci-Fi Movie Officially Bombs After Being Removed From More Than 1,000 Theaters

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema. 

While DC’s Clayface took the number-one spot in its box-office debut this past weekend, a string of new releases settled for lower spots on the list. For instance, LAIKA’s new offering, Wildwood, took the third spot with an $11 million haul, while the buzzy comedy Wicker grossed nearly $6 million in a relatively limited rollout. Two awards contenders — The Only Living Pickpocket in New York and Fatherland — debuted in six and four theaters, respectively, and delivered the weekend’s biggest per-theater averages. However, the most disappointing performance of any new release this weekend came from Taika Waititi‘s new film.

The dystopian sci-fi movie was probably designed as an awards contender in the vein of Waititi’s Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit. However, the filmmaker has had a rather precipitous decline in reputation since then, having made Thor: Love and Thunder and the troubled sports drama Next Goal Wins. Waititi’s new movie was supposed to be released in nearly 2,000 theaters this week, but poor reviews and unexpected competition convinced Sony to take the platform release strategy. It was eventually rolled out in around 800 theaters — roughly the same number as last week’s A24 documentary You Can See Everything.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

• You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
• You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
• You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
• The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

• You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
• You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
• You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
• In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

• You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
• In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
• You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
• In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

• Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
• You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
• Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
• In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

• You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
• You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
• You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
• In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

Here’s How Much Taika Waititi’s New Movie Grossed at the Box Office

• Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

• Image via. Sony Pictures Distributing

• Image via. Sony Pictures Distributing

• Image via. Sony Pictures Distributing

However, while You Can See Everything shattered expectations and grossed $15 million in its debut weekend, Waititi’s new movie — Klara and the Sun — managed to generate just $725,000. The film marks another box office disappointment for stars Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, who are coming off a string of underperformers. Based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, the new film is sitting at a 25% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Flattening the nuanced ideas of its acclaimed source material with a tonally broad approach, Klara and the Sun aims to be endearing and inspiring but winds up being cloying and twee.” Klara and the Sun is the second bomb in consecutive months for Sony after Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning. The film plummeted 85% this weekend, dooming it to a final gross of under $10 million.

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Klara and the Sun