{"id":2252041,"date":"2026-01-27T00:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2252041"},"modified":"2026-01-27T00:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T00:40:08","slug":"sundance-2026-the-invite-and-gail-daughtry-lure-with-sex-and-laughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sundance-2026-the-invite-and-gail-daughtry-lure-with-sex-and-laughs\/","title":{"rendered":"Sundance 2026: “The Invite” and “Gail Daughtry” lure with sex and laughs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

PARK CITY, Utah\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/span>Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. <\/i>Sign up here<\/i><\/a> to get it in your inbox.<\/i><\/p>\n

Good evening \u2014 it\u2019s Monday, Jan. 26, and you\u2019re reading the last of our Sundance dispatches. Today we\u2019ve seen a high of 36 degrees on a notably sunny day. We waited and waited<\/i> for deal news but it hasn\u2019t quite arrived yet.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re hearing about distributors circling both Olivia Wilde\u2019s \u201cThe Invite\u201d and the provocative \u201cJosephine,\u201d the latter of which is coalescing into a critical favorite at the fest.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been speaking the last few days with a parade of fascinating stars and directors: Ethan Hawke, Salman Rushdie, the legendary Billie Jean King, Brittney Griner, many more. Check out our videos right here<\/a> as we make them live.<\/p>\n

Mark Olsen spoke with director NB Mager<\/a> about her debut feature \u201cRun Amok,\u201d which premiered at the festival today. Here are some recommendations for you.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re watching today<\/h2>\n

\u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\n
<\/picture>\n
\n

Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley and Ben Wang in the movie \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Sundance Institute)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Twenty-five years ago, the Sundance premiere of David Wain\u2019s \u201cWet Hot American Summer\u201d reignited the \u201980s-style sex romp. Now he\u2019s returned to Park City to see if he can rescue the comedy again. <\/p>\n

\u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u201d stars Zoey Deutch as a Kansas hairdresser whose fianc\u00e9 cheats on her with his \u201chall pass\u201d: a get-out-of-the-doghouse-free exemption for canoodling with his movie-star crush. (I\u2019ll let you discover that cameo yourself.) <\/p>\n

To even the score, Gail travels to Los Angeles to sleep with her own idol, Jon Hamm, and is soon skipping down Hollywood Boulveard with a ragtag group of new friends, including \u201cMad Men\u2019s\u201d John Slattery as himself. There\u2019s a sensitive indie way to tell this story \u2014 and then there\u2019s Wain\u2019s giddy lampoon of \u201cThe Wizard of Oz.\u201d <\/p>\n

Too many modern comedies are jokeless anxiety attacks. I just wanna laugh. I need<\/i> to laugh. If you need to laugh, this is your hall pass to get slap-happy. \u2014 Amy Nicholson<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cChasing Summer\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\"A <\/picture>\n
\n

Iliza Shlesinger stars in the movie \u201cChasing Summer.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Eric Branco \/ Summer 2001 LLC \/ Sundance Institute)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Comedian Iliza Shlesinger writes and stars in \u201cChasing Summer,\u201d directed by Josephine Decker. Having recently lost her job and her boyfriend at the same time, Jamie (Shlesinger) returns to her parents\u2019 house in the small Texas town where she grew up. <\/p>\n

As she falls back into some of the same social dynamics from when she was a teenager, possibly rekindling an old flame (Tom Welling), Jamie also enjoys an affair with a much-younger man (Garrett Wareing). <\/p>\n

Though Schlesinger\u2019s bawdy humor and Decker\u2019s explorations of female interiority in films such as \u201cShirley\u201d and \u201cMadeline\u2019s Madeline\u201d (both played at Sundance) might make for an unexpected collaboration, it\u2019s a surprisingly good match. Funny and insightful, the movie shows that sometimes you can in fact go home again. \u2014 Mark Olsen<\/i><\/p>\n

The sexy \u2018Sundance tribute\u2019 in \u2018Gail Daughtry\u2019<\/h2>\n

Having the world premiere of \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u201d at Sundance was a full-circle moment of sorts for director and co-writer David Wain. His first introduction to the festival was Steven Soderbergh\u2019s hall of famer \u201cSex, Lies and Videotape,\u201d<\/a> and Wain noted after the well-received premiere of his new film that he \u201covertly stole\u201d two sex scenes from that indie classic as \u201ca tribute to Sundance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, \u201cGail Daughtry\u201d is about as oppposite as you can get from Soderbergh. It\u2019s an absurdist, cameo-filled comedy proudly shot on location in L.A. that co-writer Ken Marino described before the screening as a \u201csilly, fun romp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before its theatrical release, it already has the hallmarks of a cult classic \u00e0 la another Wain and Co. film, \u201cWet Hot American Summer,\u201d<\/a> and features many faces from that movie as well as the State, the comedy troupe that cast member Kerri Kenney-Silver explained started in a supply closet at New York University because they couldn\u2019t get any other rehearsal space.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking movies with your friends is a privilege,\u201d cast member Joe Lo Truglio said. And with their ever-expanding circle of friends, we\u2019re the ones who benefit. \u2014 Vanessa Franko<\/i><\/p>\n

Some deal news<\/h2>\n

Neon has acquired the worldwide rights to horror film \u201c4 X 4: The Event\u201d from filmmaker Alex Ullom, the indie studio said Sunday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The deal is the first to be made in Park City so far, though the film was not shown at Sundance and will begin production later this year. The value of the deal was not disclosed.<\/p>\n

The film follows eight contestants who join an illegal \u201csensory assault\u201d livestream in which they can only harm each other with items they can buy online, Neon said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The studio previously bought global rights to Ullom\u2019s first horror film, \u201cIt Ends,\u201d after it premiered at SXSW last year. \u2014 Samantha Masunaga<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARK CITY, Utah\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. Good evening \u2014 it\u2019s Monday, Jan. 26, and you\u2019re reading the last of our Sundance dispatches. Today we\u2019ve seen a high of 36 degrees on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2252042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2252041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Sundance-2026-The-Invite-and-Gail-Daughtry-lure-with-sex.com2F1d2F592Fe2183cfa444aa98af169c99f.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2252041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2252043,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252041\/revisions\/2252043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2252042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2252041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2252041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2252041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}