Here’s another Sundance sell — Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex,” starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, sold to Magnolia for a seven-figure deal, with $3M–$4M being the number currently circulating. The distributor is planning a theatrical release later this year.
In the film, based on an original script co-written with Karley Sciortino (“Slutever,” “Now Apocalypse”), Hoffman stars as Wilde’s ultra-dominated sex toy. He’s fresh-faced Elliot, landing a dream job with renowned artist, icon, and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), but not too long afterwards becomes her “sexual muse.” The tagline says the film has “sex, obsession, power, betrayal, and murder.”
Reviews were good, but not necessarily great, for “I Want Your Sex” — it currently holds a 63 on Metacritic and sits at 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. The rest of the cast includes Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, and Daveed Diggs.
Araki hasn’t released a feature since 2014’s underrated “White Bird in a Blizzard.” Since then, he’s mostly worked in TV, directing on “13 Reasons Why,” “Dahmer,” and creating his own series, “Now Apocalypse.” He’s said that “I Want Your Sex” is “cut from the same cloth” as his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy—“Totally F***ed Up,” “The Doom Generation,” and “Nowhere.” Yet many, including myself, consider his most enduring work to be 2004’s “Mysterious Skin.”