Olivia Wilde's third feature as a director arrives with a set that spans one apartment, a 21-day shoot, and a cast that rehearsed for six weeks without pay. The Invite, distributed by A24, opens in theaters July 10, 2026.
Adapted from the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs by Cesc Gay, the film centers on a San Francisco couple (Wilde and Seth Rogen) whose upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz) arrive for dinner. What unfolds over one night is a chamber piece Wilde conceived as theater: the production was shot scene-by-scene, in story order, on film stock rather than digital. Two additional days of location shooting covered the opening title sequence.
In a conversation with Variety published June 28, Wilde drew a direct line from Don't Worry Darling to this film. "I believe in early failure," she said. "If you go through that...a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, there's liberation." That 2022 film, her second feature, was eclipsed publicly by on-set conflict and its critical reception. The Invite is a deliberate reduction in scale.
Wilde was equally insistent on where the film would be seen. "Every distributor wanted to take this movie to theaters," she told Variety, "and I was adamant that we didn't go to a streamer." She also singled out Rogen's performance in the film, comparing him to "Albert Brooks or 1980s Richard Dreyfuss" and calling it a career peak.
The film's ending leaves something deliberately unresolved. Wilde confirmed to Variety that the Norton and Cruz characters are never seen without the two protagonists present, with one exception. Whether the upstairs neighbors actually existed is the question The Invite leaves in the room.