{"id":885669,"date":"2026-06-22T21:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/885669\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T21:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:06:16","slug":"the-invite-screenwriters-rashida-jones-and-will-mccormack-tell-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/885669\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Invite’ Screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack Tell All"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEvery good party starts with expert hosts. This weekend, audiences will receive \u201cThe Invite<\/a>,\u201d Olivia Wilde\u2019s couples dramedy, which revived a sleepy Sundance in January thanks to a riveting four-hander with her costars Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Ed Norton and Seth Rogen.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film thawed out critics and audiences in Park City with its examination of marital bitterness and unfulfilled fantasies (sexual and otherwise). It also sparked a tense bidding war before A24 prevailed, acquiring domestic distribution rights for more than $12 million, Variety reported at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe host committee for \u201cThe Invite\u201d surely includes screenwriters Rashida Jones<\/a> and Will McCormack<\/a>. The longtime friends and partners adapted Cesc Gay\u2019s 2020 Spanish-language film \u201cThe People Upstairs,\u201d unleashing director-star Wilde and her ensemble on a concept that underscores what makes Jones and McCormack\u2019s writing special: storytelling rooted deeply in their own experiences, delivered in a style that\u2019s brutally honest and never cheesy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie tackles fertility, perimenopause, toxic masculinity, financial strain, female pleasure and disappointment in the way that many marriages eventually seem to. None of it plays like a parlor game or rage-bait, as the genre so often can.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe both have an internal cheese meter we\u2019re constantly checking in with,\u201d Jones told Variety. \u201cConversations have to feel like ones real people have. The poetry has to come from the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis isn\u2019t new terrain for the duo, who wrote their first script sitting side by side at the same laptop. That was 2012\u2019s \u201cCeleste and Jesse Forever,\u201d in which Jones starred with Andy Samberg as college sweethearts whose marriage can\u2019t go on, yet neither wants to give up the other\u2019s friendship.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe most heartbreaking moments of our lives have also been the funniest,\u201d McCormack said. \u201c\u2018Celeste and Jesse\u2019 was about the heartbreak of love, and \u2018The Invite\u2019 is really about the heartbreak of life. Your parents die; you\u2019re in a long-term relationship; you have kids or you don\u2019t. You\u2019re dealing with the heartache of middle age, and this movie met us at a time when we were ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe writers consulted relationship guru Esther Perel on the \u201cInvite\u201d script, which McCormack called beneficial to both his life and his work. Jones said she and her writing partner emerged with a new appreciation for marriage, which they think the film endorses.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe want people to evolve, and we want to forgive them. We can do that with kids and with friends. But our partners \u2014 those relationships start to get into trouble when we can\u2019t show acceptance. When you can, even if it\u2019s at different pace, that\u2019s an argument to get married,\u201d says Jones.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn terms of their creative marriage, Variety asked what the deal breaker would be for each if they were married to each other in a different life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill and I had the biggest fight in our lives when we were working at Pixar,\u201d Jones said, recalling when she and McCormack were in the \u201cToy Story 4\u201d writers\u2019 room. \u201cHe told me that I bite my spoon too much when I eat. I told him he\u2019s too much of a mouth breather. We were spending a lot of time together.\u201d<\/p>\n

As \u201cThe Invite\u201d readies for a limited release on Friday before opening wide, Jones and McCormack have several other projects in the works \u2014 including the script for a feature-length \u201cTom and Jerry\u201d adventure at Warner Bros. Animation. No surprise, they see the war of the cat and mouse as a relationship comedy.<\/p>\n

\n\tTheir Tom and Jerry are each rescued by do-gooders who eventually fall in love. The cat and mouse then launch campaigns to destroy each other and the bond between their owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom and Jerry do whatever they can to kill the other or to break up [their owners],\u201d McCormack says. \u201cIt\u2019s a rom-com in the style of \u2018La La Land.\u2019 Why are these characters fighting so much? Because they want to be seen, and they want to be loved. The logline of our film is literally \u2018Love is worth fighting for.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every good party starts with expert hosts. This weekend, audiences will receive \u201cThe Invite,\u201d Olivia Wilde\u2019s couples dramedy,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":885670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,226188,237987,67,132,68,359448],"class_list":["post-885669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-rashida-jones","tag-the-invite","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-mccormack"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116795801188602734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885669","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=885669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}