The Invite: Olivia Wilde presents her new film in Paris

Paris became the latest stop on the journey of The Invite on September 14, when Olivia Wilde appeared at the Pathé Palace to introduce her third feature as a director. The 7:00 p.m. preview came only two days before the film’s French theatrical release on September 16 through Maverick Distribution. Speaking for roughly five minutes before the screening, Olivia Wilde briefly returned to the origins of the project and to the unusually concentrated production process behind a film built around one dinner, two couples and the dangerous gap between what people say and what they actually want.

The Paris setting gave the presentation a fitting sense of intimacy. The Invite is not designed around spectacle but around proximity: Angela and Joe, played by Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen, invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors Piña and Hawk, played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, to dinner. What begins as a social gesture rapidly turns into a pressure chamber for four adults whose ideas about marriage, desire, freedom and happiness do not line up as neatly as they thought. The French press dossier summarizes the premise with deliberate economy: the evening will make all their certainties collapse.

From Cesc Gay’s Spanish story to an American chamber comedy

The screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones adapts Sentimental, the Spanish film by Cesc Gay, itself derived from Cesc Gay’s stage play Los Vecinos de Arriba. The material had already demonstrated its adaptability across different countries, but the American version was conceived around the emotional and cultural tensions of its new characters. The French press notes describe the film as an exploration of four adults forced into a funny, uncomfortable and increasingly revealing examination of their own relationships.

For Olivia Wilde, the project arrived in an unexpected way. She first encountered the screenplay when she was approached as an actress, before later being asked to direct. By then, its conversations about relationships had become personally compelling to her as a filmmaker. The finished movie follows Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling, but moves into a more concentrated territory: rather than expanding outward, it keeps tightening the space around its characters. The production notes cite the relationship-driven cinema of Mike Nichols, particularly Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as an important creative reference for the shifting alliances, confrontations and moments of connection around the table.

A cast that helped reshape the screenplay

The film’s collaborative method began before cameras rolled. Olivia Wilde, Will McCormack and Rashida Jones worked with the principal cast in an intensive workshop process, testing dialogue and reshaping character psychology around the performers. The French dossier says the group spent eight days together at Sunset Las Palmas in Los Angeles, trading personal anecdotes, improvising lines and revising the screenplay as new ideas emerged. Olivia Wilde joked that the studio’s history made her feel as though Lucille Ball was watching over them.

Seth Rogen was the filmmaker’s early choice for Joe, a frustrated musician and teacher whose sarcasm masks insecurity. Edward Norton brought a more vulnerable history to Hawk, while Penélope Cruz was chosen for the combination of warmth, comic instinct and dramatic authority required for Piña. The final casting decision was unexpectedly close to home: after considering other possibilities for Angela, Olivia Wilde was encouraged by her co-stars to play the role herself. According to the production notes, Edward Norton was particularly important in giving her the confidence to direct and perform at the same time.

Esther Perel, 35mm film and a deliberately enclosed world

One of the production’s most distinctive collaborators never joined the four actors at the dinner table. Relationship psychotherapist and author Esther Perel served as a consultant, helping the filmmakers think through questions of intimacy, agency and responsibility inside a couple. Her input was especially useful to Penélope Cruz, whose character Piña is herself a therapist. Olivia Wilde described Esther Perel in the French press material as far more than a consultant, calling her an “oracle” for the project.

The visual strategy was equally deliberate. Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra shot the film on 35mm, while production designer Jade Healy built the San Francisco apartment as a maze of rooms, doorways, reflections and frames within frames. The press dossier states that principal photography unfolded chronologically across 21 shooting days, allowing the actors’ relationships to evolve in sequence. That figure is more precise than some early reports describing a 23-day shoot. The apartment was conceived almost as a fifth character: elegant and welcoming at first glance, but increasingly capable of making Angela and Joe appear trapped inside their own domestic life. Sundance later highlighted the same sequential, soundstage-based approach when examining the film’s visual language.

From Sundance to a strong independent theatrical run

The Invite premiered at the Sundance Film Festival’s Eccles Theatre on January 24, 2026, where Olivia Wilde introduced the film as her third directing feature. It subsequently travelled through the international festival circuit, including the Sydney Film Festival’s Official Competition. In the United States, A24 opened the film in limited release on June 26 before expanding it nationwide on July 10. Its first weekend brought in $379,104 from only seven theaters, a strong platform launch before the release widened to 1,610 locations.

By September 10, Box Office Mojo reported $25.94 million in the United States and Canada and $29.7 million internationally, for a worldwide total of approximately $55.64 million. Those figures make the Paris presentation more than a routine promotional stop: the French opening arrives after the film has already demonstrated that an adult, dialogue-driven independent comedy can find a substantial theatrical audience during a blockbuster-heavy summer. The French release is handled by Maverick Distribution, which confirms the September 16 date.

A film built to continue after the credits

The technical team reinforces the film’s mixture of precision and instability. Yorgos Mavropsaridis and Anthony Boys edited the 107-minute feature, while Devonté Hynes composed the original score. The principal producers are David Permut, Ben Browning and Megan Ellison. The film’s four-person dramatic engine remains its defining asset, however: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton move between comedy, embarrassment, aggression and vulnerability without the safety of a conventional romantic formula.

That may also explain why the Paris introduction felt appropriate just before the French launch. Olivia Wilde has said she hopes audiences laugh together and then continue talking about the choices people make and the freedom they retain inside relationships. The Invite is constructed for exactly that after-effect. Its dinner ends, but the questions it raises about compromise, attraction, resentment and self-deception are meant to leave the theater with the audience. French moviegoers can discover that conversation from September 16.

The Invite: event recap

Where: Pathé Palace, 2 Boulevard des Capucines, 75009 Paris, France.
When: September 14, 2026, at 7:00 p.m., two days before the French theatrical release.
What: Olivia Wilde presented The Invite and spoke for roughly five minutes about the film’s origins and compact production. The 107-minute comedy-drama stars Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, adapted from work by Cesc Gay. Maverick Distribution releases the film in French cinemas on September 16, 2026.

Synopsis :
Angela and Joe invite their mysterious new upstairs neighbors over for dinner. The evening will soon shatter all their certainties.

The Invite
Directed by Olivia Wilde
Written by Will McCormack, Rashida Jones
Based on The People Upstairs by Cesc Gay
Produced by Ben Browning, Megan Ellison, David Permut
Starring Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton
Cinematography : Adam Newport-Berra
Edited by Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Anthony Boys
Music by Devonté Hynes
Production companies : Invite Productions, Inc.Annapurna Pictures, FilmNation Entertainment, Permut Presentations
Distributed by A24 (United States), Maverick Distribution (France)
Release dates January 24, 2026 (Sundance), June 26, 2026 (United States), September 16 2026 (France)
Running time : 107 minutes

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Photos and video 4K : Boris Colletier / Mulderville