Sundance Festival Directors on Audience Reaction to ‘The Invite,’ More Sales at Final Park City Fest

Ahead of the 2026 iteration, Sundance Film Festival director Eugene Hernandez shouted out one film in particular that he thought festivalgoers should make a point to see in Park City: “The Invite.” Indeed, Olivia Wilde’s raucous comedy played huge during its premiere at Eccles on the first weekend of the fest, resulting in the first overnight bidding war in years as the enthusiastic audience response – both laughs and tears – made clear this has the potential to be a big hit.

In other words, according to Hernandez, it was one of those legendary Sundance screenings you hope to witness, like the premieres of films like “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Boyhood” in years past.

“That screening was a classic,” Hernandez said on Thursday when I brought up the electric reaction to Wilde’s film, which sold to A24 for eight figures this week. 

Added Sundance Film Festival director of programming Kim Yutani: “There are films that we program that we knew would perform well at the festival, and judging by how we reacted as a programming team to ‘The Invite,’ we knew that that was likely going to be a hit. It’s always just so gratifying to see it in the moment happen with audiences. Sometimes I’ll listen in and see how the crowd is reacting, just so I feel reassured. But that was definitely a highlight.”

Hernandez and Yutani hopped on a Zoom with me on Thursday, mid-festival, and while the sleep deprivation was definitely apparent, both were relieved that all their hard work for the final Sundance in Park City was paying off.

“I would say that our audiences have been so receptive to our programming this year,” Hernandez said. “The fact that a film like ‘Levitating,’ which is part of our World Dramatic Competition and is a film from Indonesia, has been getting standing ovations at every single screening is a testament to how open audiences are to new work and artists who are taking chances and making films in different ways. That is a crucial part of the so-called Sundance magic.”

He’s right. As a years-long veteran of the festival myself, I can attest that the programming this year was particularly well-received. I witnessed standing ovations for “The Invite” and the Olivia Colman/Alexander Skarsgård fairy tale “Wicker.” My colleagues raved about Stephanie Ahn’s Korean drama “Bedford Park” and Kogonada’s “Zi,” and films like the Channing Tatum drama “Josephine” had Park City buzzing.

Hernandez noted that even the 20th anniversary screening of “Little Miss Sunshine” on Wednesday night, which brought stars Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin back to the Eccles, played huge. “It was on par with or maybe even more enthusiastic than the reaction from 20 years ago,” he said, pointing out that many in the audience hadn’t seen it before.

The sales have also been popping — at least in contrast to last year’s festival, which set a record for the longest time before the first movie was sold. This year, four have been sold already – “The Invite” (A24), “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” (Sony Pictures Classics), “Leviticus” (Neon) and “Saccharine” (Shudder) – with others in the process of being sold, insiders told TheWrap.

It’s still a starkly different environment than the festival’s heyday of the 1990s and 2000s, when bidding wars erupted and all the major studios had independent labels dedicated to releasing indie films in theaters. Now even the streamers are gun shy.

But Hernandez noted that the festival has a “widened aperture” in focus beyond just selling movies to major distributors, adding that he and Yutani have been talking to several festival programmers who were “lining up invitations for these films for other festivals” as well as non-profit and impact partners who are “watching this program and thinking about ways to help support films finding an audience in a direct way.”

The festival’s purpose, they argued, goes beyond bidding wars.

Several buyers TheWrap talked to ahead of and during the festival spoke about the importance of PVOD as a revenue stream. While all said a theatrical release is the ideal, the math that makes an acquisition worthwhile now heavily factors in PVOD and SVOD rights, where audiences eventually catch up with these indies at home.

For example, Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” sold to Searchlight for $10 million two years ago and made $25 million at the worldwide box office, but was a streaming hit on Hulu and was available on PVOD as Kiernan Culkin was front and center in the awards race.

Significant change for Sundance is afoot in more ways than one as it moves to Boulder next year, but Hernandez and Yutani deferred questions about what festivalgoers can expect. They have four more days of this year’s festival ahead of them, of course.

But Hernandez did tease that there will be “more to come” on the Boulder front in the weeks ahead.

The post Sundance Festival Directors on Audience Reaction to ‘The Invite,’ More Sales at Final Park City Fest appeared first on TheWrap.