Overview
- First-look coverage published Thursday, June 18, 2026, confirms Jenna Ortega stars as Klara with Amy Adams as the mother and Mia Tharia as Josie.
- Waititi co-wrote the screenplay with Dahvi Waller and says the film may be his most dramatic work after he moved away from an earlier, more comic approach.
- The movie was shot in New Zealand in early 2024 and Waititi says he found the right, quieter tone during the edit by emphasizing interior relationships.
- Production design presents a retro-tinged near future where the internet is absent from daily life and some children are genetically engineered, and the team limited alienating visual effects to keep Klara human-feeling.
- TriStar set a theatrical release date of October 23, 2026, and the film’s focus on whether love can be programmed arrives as public debate over AI and human attachment intensifies, making festival runs such as Toronto a likely next step.