Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde and Charli xcx premiere movies at Sundance Film Festival

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Sundance Film Festival was in full swing Friday in Park City, with Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde and Charli xcx movies premiering back-to-back at the storied Eccles Theatre in the evening.

First up was “Josephine,” writer-director Beth De Araújo’s raw drama about an 8-year-old girl (Mason Reeves) whose life and sense of safety is upended after she witnesses a sexual assault in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Gemma Chan play the parents who are unsure how to help her navigate these new emotions and fears. The film, which is part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition, is based on De Araújo’s own experience of seeing something scarring at that age.

There wasn’t a seat to spare, and over 400 people on the waitlist were unable to get in. Afterward the crowd gave a long standing ovation as the filmmaker and actors came onstage for a Q&A.

Araújo discovered Reeves at a San Francisco farmer's market, where she told her mother she was casting for someone to play Tatum and Chan's daughter.

Reeves said one of her favorite parts of the film was a scene in which she and Tatum eat a jelly doughnut.

“I only ate the outside and fed the jelly part to him,” Reeves said.

Tatum chimed in: “That is true.”

He also praised his young co-star, saying “how good is she?” He watched the film for the first time with the Sundance audience and said he cried “five, six, seven times.”

The next film, Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex,” brought a distinct change in tone to the Eccles. It’s the story of a college graduate in his early 20s (played by Cooper Hoffman ) who gets his first job as a kind of intern/assistant to a renowned art world provocateur named Erika Tracy (Wilde), who Arkai described as “bold, daring and very controversial,” a cross between Robert Mapplethorpe and Madonna.

“It’s the story of their affairs and the impact it has on this kid’s life and how it kind of turns his whole world upside down,” Araki told The Associated Press. “It’s fun, it’s colorful, it’s sexy. And it’s a ride.”

It’s a film that Araki has been working on for over 10 years, as it evolved from a comic “Fifty Shades of Grey” with a female intern to what it is now.

“After #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein, all the stuff that was going on, it was literally like, I don’t really want to see a woman getting dragged around by the hair,” Araki said. “I don’t want to seed that kind of patriarchal dynamic, even if it’s consensual.”

Flipping the gender roles and making the young intern a man made the movie more interesting for Araki, “as a filmmaker who has always been heavily influenced by feminist film theory and feminism in general,” he said.

At the same time, he was absorbing news stories about Gen Z and how they don’t have sex or relationships anymore and a new dynamic emerged.

“What I knew as an old person, as an old-timer, in terms of socialization, dating, sex, all of this stuff that seemed to be kind of falling away,” Araki said. “And so that kind of became a major theme of the movie.”

Things Wilde’s character says are things he has also said in interviews about sex and sexuality. Her character gets into generational debates about it. And ultimately it's sex positive.

“It was very important to me to make something sex positive,” Araki said. “‘I Want Your Sex’ is like the opposite of ‘ Babygirl,’which I found to be very sex negative.”

Wilde said after the premiere that she wished “more people made movies” like Araki: getting a cool group of people together and making something fun in a noncorporate environment.

The film also features a supporting turn from Charli xcx, who was a fan of Araki and whose “Brat” album cover was partially inspired by the title credits to his film “Smiley Face.” When she heard about this new movie, he said, she asked if she could be in it. He was interested, but told her agent that she needed to do a self-tape “like everyone else” to play the part of Hoffman’s girlfriend.

“The character is not her. That’s what’s so fun,” he said. “She’s American, she’s super uptight and kind of pill.”

She filmed her scenes in one day, on a two-day break in the middle of her Brat tour.

It was a Charli xcx double feature at the Eccles with the world premiere of her self-referential mockumentary “The Moment,” about a rising pop star, before it hits theaters on Jan. 30.

Earlier Friday the world premiere of William David Caballero's mixed-media film “TheyDream” immersed viewers in the intimate story of a Puerto Rican family learning to process grief through art. Caballero and cowriter Elaine Del Valle have screened short films at Sundance in the past but were honored to bring a full-length feature to the festival.

“Sundance has always been about possibility for me — about artists being given space to take creative risks and tell personal stories,” Del Valle, who is also a producer on the film, told AP. “Bringing our first feature, especially in Sundance's final year in Utah, carries a different weight.”

Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed.

For more coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival

Charli xcx attends the premiere of "The Moment" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Charli xcx attends the premiere of "The Moment" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Mason Gooding, from left, Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, director Gregg Araki, and Chase Sui Wonders attend the premiere of "I Want Your Sex" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Olivia Wilde attends the premiere of "I Want Your Sex" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Pedestrians pass down Main Street before the start of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Channing Tatum, from left, Mason Reeves, and Gemma Chan attend the premiere of "Josephine" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

PHOENIX (AP) — Right-hander Zac Gallen has agreed to a $22,025,000, one-year contract to return to the Arizona Diamondbacks, a person with knowledge of the deal confirmed Friday night.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal is pending a physical.

The 2023 All-Star, a client of agent Scott Boras, was seeking a multi-year contract, but after nothing acceptable materialized, he's coming back to the desert where he's spent the majority of his big league's career.

MLB.com first reported Gallen and the D-backs were close to a deal. The value of the contract is equal to the qualifying offer that Gallen turned down in November after he become a free agent. He was the last player to reach a deal among the nine free agents who had turned down qualifying offers.

Gallen had his worst season in the big leagues in 2025, finishing with 13-15 record with a 4.83 ERA and an 8.2 strikeout rate per nine innings, the lowest of his career. But his velocity was still good and he performed better after the All-Star break with a 3.97 ERA over his final 13 starts. He had a $13.5 million salary.

The 30-year-old was one of the best pitchers in the National League from 2022-24, finishing fifth in the Cy Young Award voting in 2022 and third in 2023.

He was the ace for the D-backs in 2023, going 17-9 with a 3.47 ERA, as they made a surprise run to the World Series before losing in five games to the Texas Rangers.

Gallen was selected in the third round of the 2016 amateur draft by the St. Louis Cardinals after playing in college at North Carolina. He was traded to the Marlins in 2017 and made his big-league debut with the organization in 2019 before being traded again to the D-backs in a deal that sent Jazz Chisholm Jr. to Miami.

Overall, Gallen is 66-52 with a 3.58 ERA in seven major league seasons.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

FILE - Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen works against a San Diego Padres batter during the third inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull,File)