The new Seth Rogen movie that was shot in San Francisco is apparently quite good and got a standing ovation at Sundance, and now Hollywood studios are elbowing each other to buy the rights to what they think will be a huge hit.

We got pretty excited this past May when Seth Rogen was in San Francisco to shoot a movie. The film is called The Invite, and Rogen and co-stars like Olivia Wilde (who directed), Ed Norton, and Penelope Cruz turned up in film shoots at locations like the Make-Out Room, Glen Park BART Station, and AP Giannini Middle School, among others.  

Well, that film had its premiere at Sundance this past Saturday, and audiences reportedly went nuts for it. The New York Post reports the film screening got a standing ovation, and calls The Invite “the funniest movie of the year.” The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a smart, sophisticated and incisively acted adult entertainment that savages the crumbling institution of marriage.” SFGate has a review too, saying the film is “Sundance's biggest hit.”


So will one of the top movies of 2026 be a San Francisco movie? The Hollywood studios think so, as Variety reports that five studios are in a bidding war for the film, including Netflix and Apple. The Hollywood Reporter says that “A24, Neon and Universal division Focus Features are said to be the frontrunners for the feature, although Netflix is making a hard move with beaucoup bucks.” Deadline reported late Tuesday afternoon that Warner Bros is now in the mix too.

The film is apparently a screwball comedy where Rogen and Wilde play a couple in a dead-end marriage, which is goosed by a dinner party with polyamorous freewheelers played by Norton and Cruz. Wilde previously directed the 2019 indie hit Booksmart, and 2022's Don't Worry Darling.

The new national narrative about our fair city is that San Francisco is on a comeback. It would probably only reinforce that comeback story if there were a smash hit movie filmed in San Francisco that came out right about now.

We don’t know when The Invite is coming out — the film currently has no release date, no trailer, and not even a distributor. But distributors are trying to outbid each other for the rights to this movie, so maybe SF will come out looking pretty good in this whole movie deal.

Related: Seth Rogen Movie Shoot Creating All Sorts of Hubbub Across San Francisco [SFist]

Images: Left (Stephen McCarthy/Collision via Sportsfile through Wikimedia Commons, Right (Anna K via Yelp)