After Olivia Wilde was served custody papers onstage at CinemaCon on Tuesday, convention organizers are trying to figure out how the woman who served them was even able to get to the stage to do so.
Speaking to Wrap editor Sharon Waxman for The WrapUp podcast on Thursday, John Fithian, the National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO, admitted that show officials still don’t know who the woman was that served Wilde with the paperwork or how she became a registered attendee of the show.
“No, no we don’t,” Fithian said. “Because we we’ve looked at the security footage, and we know it was a registered delegate, because she had a badge. And we know it was a woman, but we can’t identify it. We don’t know who she was.”
He later added , “We don’t know how this person got a registered badge to get through security to get into the auditorium. So it’s — we just haven’t figured it out.”
That said, Fithian reiterated that CinemaCon security procedures were reevaluated and beefed up, and noted his own disappointment that the incident was even able to happen.
“It’s unfortunate. And we’ve had this show running for 30 plus years, this has never happened,” he said. “And so, we have reevaluated our protocols, and we’ve already changed right here at the show. We’ve now got security at the front of the stage. But we’ve never had an incident like this before, because this is an industry show. This isn’t Comic Con, right? These people are invited to come to the show, they register, they register the occupations, they get their delegate badges.”
Wilde was onstage Tuesday during Warner Bros.’ presentation, promoting her upcoming film “Don’t Worry Darling.” But, while the director was speaking, she was suddenly interrupted by a woman who approached from the audience and slid a manila envelope across the stage to Wilde.
On Wednesday, it was revealed the envelope contained legal papers from her ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, with whom she shares two children.
Individuals with knowledge of the show’s production said Wilde’s appearance had not been made public. Beyond Wilde’s circle and the CinemaCon production team, few — if any — people knew she would be there.
“Papers were drawn up to establish jurisdiction relating to the children of Ms. Wilde and Mr. Sudeikis,” a source told TheWrap on Thursday night.
The source added that “Sudeikis had no prior knowledge of the time or place that the envelope would have been delivered as this would solely be up to the process service company involved and he would never condone her being served in such an inappropriate manner.”
But CinemaCon officials were skeptical about this, considering the few who were privy to Wilde’s presence in Las Vegas. One fuming official concluded that Sudeikis had done this on purpose. “He wanted to humiliate her,” said this official, who declined to speak on the record.