{"id":546563,"date":"2026-01-27T10:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T10:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/546563\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T10:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T10:02:15","slug":"a24-focus-bid-for-sundance-breakout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/546563\/","title":{"rendered":"A24, Focus Bid for Sundance Breakout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA24 and Focus Features are locked in a heated bidding war for Olivia Wilde<\/a>\u2018s new movie \u201cThe Invite<\/a>,\u201d which debuted to raves at this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Saturday night\u2019s premiere at Park City\u2019s Eccles Theater, several buyers including Neon, Netflix, Apple, Searchlight and new distributor Black Bear were interested in acquiring the film. However those companies backed out as offers started to heat up and eclipse $10 million, and it became clear that Wilde wanted a traditional theatrical release. Right now the offer is north of $12 million, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.<\/p>\n

\n\tDirected by Wilde and written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, \u201cThe Invite\u201d takes place during a dinner party between a warring married couple and their upstairs neighbors, who turn out to be swingers. Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton star in the film, an English language remake of the Spanish comedy \u201cThe People Upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Invite\u201d is Wilde\u2019s third directorial effort following 2019\u2019s \u201cBooksmart\u201d and 2023\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling.\u201d She was also at Sundance with director Gregg Araki\u2019s \u201cI Want Your Sex,\u201d an erotic thriller in which she co-stars with Cooper Hoffman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Invite\u201d was praised by Variety\u2019s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman as a \u201cbravura dinner-party dramedy that\u2019s like \u2018Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u2019 redone as vintage Woody Allen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTwo couples connect and collide in a movie that keeps you laughing and never stops surprising,\u201d Gleiberman wrote in his review<\/a>, adding that it\u2019s \u201cso original, so brimming with surprise, so fresh and up-to-the-minute in its perceptions of how relationships work (or don\u2019t), that you watch it in a state of rapt immersion and delight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A24 and Focus Features are locked in a heated bidding war for Olivia Wilde\u2018s new movie \u201cThe Invite,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":541185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,202775,124933,237987,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-546563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-the-invite","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115966493399792878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}