Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves an old-fashioned Sundance bidding war.
Olivia Wilde’s sex comedy The Invite has lit a fire under the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, with major indie distributors and minor studio divisions elbowing each other to make it this year’s festival first big sale.
A24, Neon and Universal division Focus Features are said to be the frontrunners for the feature, although Netflix is making a hard move with beaucoup bucks. 20th/Disney division Searchlight Pictures is also said to be in the mix.
The dealmaking has already gone through Sunday night and began almost as soon as the movie received a standing ovation after its Saturday night premiere at the Eccles Theatre and then enjoyed rave reviews.
“It’s going hard,” said one source. “A24 wants to win.”
It’s unclear if the filmmakers are focused on a theatrical release but observers on the ground in Park City noted the movie played well in a crowd. The energy on the Invite deal is so intense that its siphoning off attention on other sales titles, said one source.
Wilde reteamed with Megan Ellison, who produced her critically lauded 2019 feature directorial debut Booksmart, to tackle a remake of the Spanish language movie Sentimental. The script was written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack and the cast includes Seth Rogen, Ed Norton and Penélope Cruz, as well as Wilde.
The story centers on a couple (Wilde and Rogen) whose relationship is on the brink of collapse and have an ill-timed dinner party with their enigmatic neighbors (Norton and Cruz), who turn out to be polyamorous.
Wilde shot the movie in Los Angeles over a 23-day period, in sequence and with a lot of rehearsal time. It is her first time behind the camera since Don’t Worry Darling, her high-profile studio movie released by New Line in 2022.
