Two weeks after its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, IFC Films has acquired North American distribution rights to Leslye Headland’s sophomore feature Sleeping with Other People. The romantic comedy stars Jason Sudeikis (We’re the Millers) and Alison Brie (The Five-Year Engagement). Sleeping with Other People is Headland’s follow-up to her raucous comedy Bachelorette, a 2012 indie starring Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia), which was adapted from her own play.
Before IFC Films won a bidding war, reportedly more than a dozen distributors were interested in the title. The film chronicles the romantic highs and lows of Jake (Sudeikis), a womanizer, and Lainey (Brie), a serial cheater. The two first met in college and rekindle their relationship years later when they meet in a sex addicts group. Headland also wrote the screenplay. Sleeping with Other People also stars Amanda Peet (Togetherness), Natasha Lyonne (Orange in the New Black), Adam Scott (who also appeared in the 2015 Sundance film The Overnight), and Marc Blucas (Knight and Day.) Will Ferrell is one of the producers of the film.
Sleeping with Other People received decent, if not glowing reviews out of its Sundance premiere with many critics pointing out that the film seemed more commercial than Bachelorette – that film, which focused on the relationship of three women asked to be bridesmaids for a woman they ridiculed back in high school, made a little under $500,000 in theatrical grosses in 2012. Kyle Smith of The New York Post said of Healand’s sophomore film, “[her] script is so hilarious, so full of achingly well-observed one-liners on sex and relationships and parenting, that it qualifies as a sparkling new rethink of a beloved film we’ve all seen too many times.”
IFC Films hasn’t settled on a release date for Sleeping with Other People as of yet. IFC earlier picked up The D Train, another 2015 Sundance comedy starring Jack Black and James Marsden.
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