Overview
- Sony 3000 Pictures released the official trailer on Monday, June 22, confirming Jenna Ortega as Klara and the film’s October 23, 2026 theatrical release.
- The trailer shows Klara as a solar‑powered 'Artificial Friend' purchased to companion and tutor a sick teenager, and it foregrounds the emotional bond that drives the story without revealing key plot outcomes.
- Taika Waititi co‑wrote and directed the film with Dahvi Waller, and producers include David Heyman, Garrett Basch and Waititi, with Kazuo Ishiguro credited as an executive producer.
- Early coverage praises Ortega’s performance and the film’s emotional warmth while some critics and readers say the trailer’s lighter tone may underplay the novel’s meditative ambiguity about AI, loneliness and faith.
- The project was shot in New Zealand and has been positioned by the filmmakers as a more dramatic, intimate work from Waititi, arriving at a moment of heightened public interest in AI companions and their social effects.