A24, Focus Bid for Sundance Breakout

A24 and Focus Features are locked in a heated bidding war for Olivia Wilde‘s new movie “The Invite,” which debuted to raves at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

After Saturday night’s premiere at Park City’s 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.

Directed by Wilde and written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, “The Invite” 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 “The People Upstairs.”

“The Invite” is Wilde’s third directorial effort following 2019’s “Booksmart” and 2023’s “Don’t Worry Darling.” She was also at Sundance with director Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex,” an erotic thriller in which she co-stars with Cooper Hoffman.

“The Invite” was praised by Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman as a “bravura dinner-party dramedy that’s like ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ redone as vintage Woody Allen.”

“Two couples connect and collide in a movie that keeps you laughing and never stops surprising,” Gleiberman wrote in his review, adding that it’s “so original, so brimming with surprise, so fresh and up-to-the-minute in its perceptions of how relationships work (or don’t), that you watch it in a state of rapt immersion and delight.”