The Lonely Island’s rom-com Palm Springs has set a new Sundance sales record.
As Variety reports, the Andy Samberg/Cristin Milioti comedy exceeded its sales expectations of around $15 million by pulling in $17,500,000.69; nice, eclipsing the previous sales record Fox Searchlight set when it bought The Birth of a Nation for $17.5 million in 2016. The movie’s producers (including, all three members of The Lonely Island and Beck Sloviter) released a fittingly tongue in cheek statement about the news, saying “We spent over 85 million dollars of our own money on this movie, WE ARE TAKING A BATH on this deal. We hope NEON and Hulu are happy but we definitely have a lot of explaining to do to our families.”
As for the film itself:
Milioti plays a self-destructive bridesmaid to her younger sister at a desert destination wedding. Samberg’s emotional toast leads to a meet-cute between them, but a metaphysical event leaves the two of them with nothing to do but ponder the meaning of life, love, and more.
It’s a far more dramatic setup that those for either of The Lonely Island’s first two films, both of which were straightforward comedies. That’s not a bad thing, either, with the Sundance reviews suggesting Palm Springs is plenty funny, but also the trio’s most emotionally mature project so far.
Max Barbakow directs; J.K. Simmons, Meredith Hagner, Camila Mendes and Peter Gallagher also star. Keep an eye out for this one!
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