The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the team behind
I Wish You All the Best
at SXSW 2024.
Writer-director Tommy Dorfman and stars Corey Fogelmanis and Cole Sprouse discuss their journey bringing Mason Deaver’s novel to the big screen.
Fogelmanis stars as Ben DeBacker, a non-binary teen who’s thrown out by their parents and moves in with their estranged sister. While getting a fresh start with her and attending a new school, Ben discovers themselves, bringing the chance to have a happier new life within reach.

The SXSW 2024 line-up was loaded with wildly impressive feature directorial debuts. For example, there was the incredibly clever seamstress thriller, Sew Torn, from Freddy MacDonald and also the riveting competitive cheerleading film, Backspot, directed by D.W. Waterson. Yet another artist making their feature filmmaking debut in a very special way? Tommy Dorfman who’s behind the book to film adaptation, I Wish You All the Best.

In his first headlining performance in a feature film, Corey Fogelmanis leads as Ben DeBacker. Ben is a non-binary teen who comes out to their parents and is then thrown out of the house. From there, Ben moves in with their estranged older sister (Alexandra Daddario) and her husband (Cole Sprouse), and attempts to get a fresh start at a new school. Not only does Ben finally have a home life filled with love and support, but they find the same at school when Nathan (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) instantly welcomes Ben into his group of friends. A happier life feels more within reach to Ben than ever.

While in Austin for I Wish You All the Best’s world premiere at SXSW, Sprouse, Fogelmanis and Dorfman all visited the Collider interview studio to discuss their experience bringing Ben’s story to the big screen.

Why Working with First-Time Directors Is Important to Cole Sprouse
Image via Focus Features

I Wish You All the Best officially marks Sprouse’s second stellar collaboration with a filmmaker making their feature debut this year. A mere month before I Wish You All the Best’s SXSW premiere, Sprouse was busy celebrating the release of Lisa Frankenstein. That one is Zelda Williams’ feature directorial debut, and it’s absolutely oozing with creativity, heart, and loads of promise for her future as a director in the business.

Why is Sprouse so determined to support new voices in film right now? Here’s what he said:

“I think the industry’s become really risk averse. Super risk averse.
I find that the introduction of fresh perspective is getting more and more rare, and so I am always willing to work with first time directors.
Obviously there needs to be a level of trust, like Zelda and Tommy are my friends. I have an existing language developed with them that makes me feel comfortable. But I think the industry as a whole would stand to benefit pretty greatly from putting some financing and some trust into young original screenplays and visions, and then stick with them and cultivate them. I think that would be really awesome.”

Sprouse went on to trace this current aversion to risk back to the industry’s obsession with IP and its habit of spending boatloads of money on those films. He continued:

“IP is king right now. And
with these huge budget movies that have a ton of risk, if they don’t smash the box office, I think [that] has created a lot of insecurities with larger studios
. So for me, I’m always like, how do I help? How do I assist first time directors or creatives or writers or actors to get more interesting perspective and projects over the line? I think it’s really important. I think all of us have to make a real concentrated effort towards it.”

Making ‘I Wish You All the Best’ Showed Corey Fogelmanis “What It Is to Fly”
Image via ACE Entertainment

With that mentality, Sprouse has contributed to nudging two very special projects over the finish line this year. Lisa Frankenstein has certainly amassed a dedicated and passionate fanbase, but deserves a far wider audience than it got in theaters. The movie is now available to buy and rent digitally, and will be made available to stream on Peacock on March 29th, and I can’t recommend it enough.

As for I Wish You All the Best, hopes are high the film will eventually reach the widest possible audience. While we wait for distribution news, know that the movie has already had a huge impact on someone — its star, Corey Fogelmanis. Between the kinship Fogelmanis felt with Ben and the fantastic on-set environment Dorfman created, making I Wish You All the Best wound up being a hugely positive and enlightening experience for Fogelmanis. He explained:

“There’s a lot of Ben that I feel like I understood and recognized very instantly, so I was excited to kind of shine a light on the part of myself that does feel like I’m hiding, and it allowed me to show up each day kind of as the person that I was and was trying to move away from. I do feel like I went on this journey with them. I realized that that month that we were filming was the freest that I’d ever felt. It’s so interesting to watch it back and go on that journey.
I feel like I came out of it with an idea of maybe what it is to fly.
I’m not quite there yet, but yeah, it was very vulnerable.”

While we wait to find out when the world can experience Ben’s journey in theaters, be sure to check out my full conversation with Dorfman, Sprouse, and Fogelmanis in the video at the top of this article.

I Wish You All the Best (2024) It follows a teen who after being kicked out of the house by their parents, embarks upon a journey of self-discovery that teaches them about love, friendship, and family.Release Date March 8, 2024 Director Tommy Dorfman Runtime 92 Minutes Main Genre Drama