Maya Hawke and Lewis Pullman’s Supernatural Rom-Com ‘Wishful Thinking’ Lands at Sony Pictures Classics After SXSW Win

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up worldwide rights to “Wishful Thinking,” writer-director Graham Parkes’s debut feature, which won the Narrative Feature competition at SXSW in March.

Lewis Pullman and Maya Hawke star as Charlie, a struggling musician, and Julia, an ambitious game designer, a couple at a loss for how to repair their volatile relationship. After they sign up for a couples-therapy seminar run by a pair of mysterious twin healers, the ups and downs of their romance start producing supernatural effects on the world around them — earthquakes, market crashes, entire nations on the brink. Whether their love can survive that kind of fallout is the engine of the film.

The cast also includes Amita Rao, Randall Park, Eric Rahill, Jake Shane, Kate Berlant and Kerri Kenney-Silver. Pullman produced through his Buckwild Pictures banner. Dan Gedman and Matt Smith produced for Highway 10, which fully financed the picture. Kara Durrett produced for Pinky Promise. Alyssa Roehrenbeck, Sarah Mather, Jessamine Burgum, Cameron Fuller and Graham Patrick Martin are credited as executive producers.

“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 announcing the deal.

The company also called the picture “a film for a new generation of moviegoers with the kind of romantic comedy meant to be shared in a theater.”

Parkes, in a statement, said Sony Pictures Classics has been “a singular champion of independent cinema for nearly 35 years, releasing some of my favorite movies of all time,” and called the acquisition “the ultimate recognition for the passionate work our cast and crew put into making ‘Wishful Thinking.’”

The acquisition is the first festival win for Highway 10, the production company Smith and Gedman started together. Smith has produced studio films including Disney’s “Maleficent” pictures and entries in the “Step Up” franchise; Gedman has directed music videos for Kendrick Lamar, T-Pain and B.o.B. and won Cannes Lions for commercial work. The two went to the University of Kansas together and named the company for the road that connects their hometown of Kansas City to campus. Highway 10 will operate out of both Kansas City and Los Angeles.

UTA Independent Film Group negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.

Information sourced from Sony Pictures Classics