Fans have labelled Taika Waititi "bitter" after he posted an angry Instagram rant about movie critics.
The Klara and the Sun director found himself under fire for his strong opinions about movie critics.
Taika, 51, was slammed as "tone-deaf" and "bitter" by social media users who were unimpressed by his hot take, in which he declared the "lost souls" who became movie critics to be "irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete" and needing to be "in the bin".
The movie, estimated to have cost around $44 million (£33 million) to make, pulled in just $705,000 at the box office (£523,000) on its opening weekend.
It also received a drubbing from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes recording an overall "Fresh" rating of just 26% for the film.
Fans did not take kindly to Taika's fiery attempt at defending his directorial honour.
"Odd how every filmmaker who says critics are obsolete and irrelevant has no problem collecting awards when critics like their movie," one user wrote on X.
"A flop is a flop," another wrote, before adding, "Blaming the audience always goes great."
Meanwhile, IndieWire's chief film critic David Ehrlich wrote an op-ed in which he called Waititi's post "delusional", "tactless" and "excruciatingly tone-deaf" and took issue with the filmmaker being "convinced that everyone who hated Klara and the Sun did so out of resentment for their own shortcomings".
"Critics have gone from being a healthy part of the artistic ecosystem to something that artists feel like they need to be immunized against," he wrote. "Which isn’t to suggest that the animus between artists and critics is anything new. On the contrary, it’s as time-honored a cinematic tradition as popcorn at the movies or, say, the old trope of talented indie filmmakers who completely lose the plot once they become too successful."
An adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro sci-fi novel of the same name, Klara and the Sun stars Jenna Ortega as a humanoid robot hired by an overbearing mother (Amy Adams) to act as a companion for her gravely ill daughter, played by Mia Tharia.
