FocusFest Returns Oct. 10 With Austen Stars, First Looks
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles are bringing Jane Austen back to the backlot. The pair will attend an early advance screening — a showing before general release — of Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility at FocusFest, which returns to the Universal Studios Lot on Oct. 10, according to Variety.
Television presenter Justin Sylvester will host the full-day event, which mixes older favourites with first looks at upcoming releases, Variety reported.
Oakley’s film casts Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles as sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The FocusFest screening will give fans one of the first chances to see the new adaptation together with its stars and director.
The rest of the programme leans into literary classics and recent hits. FocusFest will screen Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice and Autumn de Wilde’s Emma, alongside Alexander Payne’s 2023 comedy-drama The Holdovers and Robert Eggers’ horror film Nosferatu.
Another advance title is Elsinore from director Simon Stone, starring Andrew Scott. It tells the story of actor Ian Charleson preparing to perform Hamlet at the National Theatre in London.
Horror leads the contemporary side of the slate. Curry Barker’s Obsession will screen at the festival after becoming Focus Features’ highest-grossing film of all time, according to Variety. Focus Features, Universal’s specialty arm for smaller and director-led films, counts Obsession in its 2026 slate alongside Eggers’ Werwulf, Paul Greengrass’s The Uprising, Elsinore and Sense and Sensibility.
Tickets are on sale through the Focus Features website, with exclusive early access for Focus Insiders. Insiders is the company’s free membership for film fans, which offers entry to member-only events, giveaways and advance screenings. The day itself will also feature themed food and drink, exclusive merchandise and interactive activations built around the films.
For fans, this means more than a marathon. Expect costumes. Expect crowds. And expect a few first glimpses of films that will fill cinemas in the months ahead.
The event follows its first edition in 2025, which included a screening of The Big Lebowski.
