‘Wishful Thinking,’ SXSW Top Prize Winner Starring Lewis Pullman and Maya Hawke, Lands at Sony Pictures Classics

Graham Parkes wrote and directed the romantic feature with a supernatural twist, which debuted at SXSW in March.

The top jury prize winner from this year’s SXSW Film & TV festival has found a home. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired worldwide rights to “Wishful Thinking,” the film from director Graham Parkes which won the top Narrative Feature jury prize from SXSW back in March.

Lewis Pullman and Maya Hawke star in the romantic dramedy with a supernatural twist, in which a couple going through couples’ therapy find that after meeting mysterious twin healers, the ups and downs of their relationship has legitimate global effects, including causing earthquakes, stock market surges, or the threat of entire nations at risk.

SPC has not yet set a release date for the film.

Parkes wrote and directed “Wishful Thinking,” which is the filmmaker’s debut feature. The cast also includes Amita Rao, Randall Park, Eric Rahill, Jake Shane, Kate Berlant, and Kerri Kenney-Silver.

The film is produced by Lewis Pullman for Buckwild Pictures, Dan Gedman and Matt Smith for Highway 10 who also fully financed the film, and Kara Durrett for Pinky Promise, and executive produced by Alyssa Roehrenbeck, Sarah Mather, Jessamine Burgum, Cameron Fuller, and Graham Patrick Martin.

“Audiences have been craving a film like ‘Wishful Thinking’ — romantic, unpredictable, and genuinely funny — and we can’t wait for them to experience Maya and Lewis in these deeply human and refreshingly hilarious leading roles,” Sony Pictures Classics said in a statement. “Graham Parkes has crafted a film for a new generation of moviegoers with the kind of romantic comedy meant to be shared in a theater, marking another collaboration we’re proud to continue with Pinky Promise and our new friends at Highway 10.”

Writer and director Parkes said in his own statement, “Sony Pictures Classics has been a singular champion of independent cinema for nearly 35 years, releasing some of my favorite movies of all time. So to be included among the films first brought to an audience by them is truly the ultimate recognition for the passionate work our cast and crew put into making ‘Wishful Thinking.’”

SPC has been active picking up buzzy titles across the year’s film festivals. It just released the BAFTA-winning “I Swear” last week. Coming up, it has Haifaa Al-Mansour’s next film “Unidentified” that premiered at TIFF; this summer, it’s releasing David Wain’s “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” after acquiring it at Sundance, as well as two other Sundance titles “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty” and “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” and at Cannes later this month it will be bringing Pedro Almodóvar’s latest “Bitter Christmas.”

The deal was negotiated between Sony Pictures Classics and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.