Andy Samberg’s “Palm Springs” sold for a record-breaking $17.5 million (and 69 cents) at the Sundance Film Festival — and looking back, the actor says he was drawn to the film because it was “a little more f—ed up” than traditional rom-coms.
“I liked it — it’s very rare,” Samberg told TheWrap’s Beatrice Verhoeven at the festival. “There are a lot of scripts written and not a lot that I personally like when I read them. [There are] many that I don’t enjoy and then like the movie when I see it later. This one was just super fun and funny and different, it felt like a way to do something that could be considered a rom-com but not in the traditional way. It was… a little more f—ed up.”
“I didn’t like it,” star Cristin Milioti joked. “I was like, ‘Please, please don’t, I don’t want to be a part of this, I don’t want to be here.’ They forced me to show up because I owed some money to some people — I had no choice. But we got through it.”
Actress Camila Mendes (“Riverdale”) called the film “titillating” and “surreal,” to which screenwriter Andy Siara added that it’s “a warm blanket.”
“If we get a review that says that, we nailed it,” Samberg said.
Director Max Barbakow said he went to film school with Siara, where the idea for “Palm Springs” was born.
“We just wanted to do something honest and funny, and wanted to entertain ourselves,” he explained. “It was in the midst of a very busy wedding season about four years ago. We were in a room kind of trying to figure out ourselves in life, a script came out of it, Andy got sent the script and they were into it, and it kind of just all happened very quickly.”
“Palm Springs” stars Samberg, Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Meredith Hagner, Mendes and Peter Gallagher. The film is about a maid of honor, Sarah, who is in Palm Springs for her younger sister’s wedding. There she meets Nyles, the date of another bridesmaid, and together they wreak havoc on the wedding and soon find themselves in a surreal state of mind.
Neon and Hulu teamed up for the film, paying a record-breaking sum for the film following its premiere at the festival.
Watch the video above.