‘I feel both thrilled and ruined by this’: Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton on making sex comedy The Invite
SkimNews Take
A $12m Sundance-to-A24 sale signals that for adult-oriented mid-budget comedies, the festival itself has become the commercial endpoint, with theatrical viability increasingly beside the point.
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- A24 acquired "The Invite" for $12m (£9m) following a Sundance bidding war in January; Olivia Wilde's film is described as a critical and commercial hit and awards contender, trumping the reception for her 2019 debut Booksmart.
- Olivia Wilde directs and stars in the film alongside Edward Norton, Seth Rogen, and Penélope Cruz — Cruz's therapist character voices psychotherapist Esther Perel's theories on marriage and inevitable "bed death" as an American byproduct of the American dream.
- Edward Norton describes the shoot — done chronologically on a single set over roughly three weeks on 35mm — as his first such experience across more than 50 movies and credits Wilde with letting him improvise a devastating Hawk monologue.
- Rashida Jones and Will McCormack workshopped the adapted script with the cast for a fortnight; the film is based on a Spanish play previously turned into movies in Italy, Switzerland, France and South Korea.
- Olivia Wilde dedicates "The Invite" to the late Diane Keaton, modeling Angela's "stupid fucking cunt" inner monologue on Keaton's Annie Hall "what a jerk" post-tennis speech.
- Esther Perel's philosophy of living one life authentically — rooted, Wilde notes, in Perel being raised by Holocaust survivors — underpins the film's argument against settling for "crumbs" in marriage.
Why it matters: For Wilde, the $12m A24 acquisition and a dedication to the late Diane Keaton frame 'The Invite' as a prestige comeback after 2022's 'Don't Worry Darling' tanked with critics and audiences. The film also packages therapist Esther Perel's theories on marital "bed death" into a mainstream comedy, normalizing conversations American culture has long treated as shameful.
