Oliva Wilde had an excellent Sundance. She mirrored on it throughout the Way forward for Filmmaking Keynote dialogue on the IndieWire Studio, offered by Dropbox the day after her movie “The Invite” premiered to a uncommon Sundance standing ovation, rave opinions, and an old-fashioned bidding warfare.
“Final night time was the most effective night time of my life, with all due respect to my youngsters, these had been nice nights too, once they had been born. They might get it,” joked Wilde.
“The Invite” is Wilde’s third characteristic movie as director, starring an all-star forged, together with herself, Seth Rogen, Edward Nortonand Penelope Cruz, with a bittersweet and hysterical script by the sought-after writing duo Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (“Celeste and Jesse Endlessly”) based mostly on the beloved Spanish language play and film “Sentimental.” It’s a undertaking that went into the competition because the primary goal on distributor’s listing of movies to probably purchaseand sparked the primary all-night bidding warfare at Sundance in years (A24 finally gained out). Contemplating all this, why was Wilde so satisfied “The Invite” needed to be made outdoors of the studio system?
Answsered Wilde, “I believe it simply proves each single time that the flicks which might be made outdoors the system, and subsequently with the liberty to permit for inventive experimentation, they’re at all times those that finally the studios find yourself recognizing as being beneficial as a result of these are the flicks the audiences need, and we see that yearly.”
Wilde pointed to this 12 months’s Academy Award nominations for instance. Requested if after the liberty, and unorthodox course of with which she made “The Invite” – which, as Wilde particulars within the video above, included weeks of workshopping the script with the forged and determining how precisely to finish the film whereas on set – what wouldn’t it take for her to return to creating a studio undertaking? Wilde stated it was all about “defining her non-negotiables” upfront, which for her meant having sufficient time to prep and work with the actors in a studio course of that not often budgets for rehearsals.
“The studios wish to make actually good motion pictures, they’re not attempting to remove the method that all of us actually need. It’s exhausting at scale for them to think about, as a result of there’s no mathematical equation for it,” stated Wilde. “It takes a variety of belief and I believe for those who can earn that belief, which I hope at this level I’ve earned a modicum of belief that may permit for me to have the ability to run a manufacturing in the way in which that I believe is simply going to profit everyone.”
Sundance 2026 additionally marks Wilde’s return to the massive display screen as an actress, starring in each “The Invite” and Greg Araki’s “I Need Your Intercourse” after taking 4 years off from appearing in motion pictures, aside from voice roles in animated initiatives. Throughout the dialogue, Wilde acknowledged she had been staying out of the limelight following the media circus and controversy surrounding the discharge of her second directorial characteristic “Don’t Fear Darling.” It was a streak she first broke to play a satirical model of herself, as a celluloid-crazed director, within the Apple TV+ collection “The Studio.”
“I had been laying low and just for these two (“The Studio” creators Rogen and Evan Goldberg) would I’ve popped out and executed that,” stated Wilde. “There was a lot that was so absurd and ridiculous about the entire circus round that film (“Don’t Fear Darling”) that it was an opportunity for me to simply snicker. And I simply suppose what ‘The Studio’ has executed for everybody is allowed for satirical reflection, and it’s a love letter to this enterprise as nicely, so I wished to be part of each, expressing my love for making motion pictures, and in addition simply poke enjoyable at myself.”
It was on the set of “The Studio” that Wilde first met Adam Newport-Berra, the cinematographer who shoot “The Invite.”
“The talent with which that present was being filmed, it was such a formidable crew,” stated Wilde. “I used to be so impressed, and Seth was the one who stated, ‘It is best to ask Adam to (shoot ‘The Invite’), and I believed it was excellent as a result of if we will take that mindset of being so delicate to what’s occurring with the performers, which is what they must do in ‘The Studio’ (through which each scene is shot in a oner)… It’s all about that crew being delicate to what’s occurring within the scene, and that’s what we actually wanted.”
Watch the whole Way forward for Filmmaking keynote dialogue with Olivia within the video above.
Dropbox is proud to accomplice with IndieWire and the Sundance Movie Pageant. In 2026, 68% of characteristic movies premiering at Sundance used Dropbox throughout manufacturing. Dropbox helps filmmakers and artistic groups discover, arrange, safe, and share the content material that issues most to any undertaking.