“The Room,” a film funded by “entrepreneur” Tommy Wiseau for $6 million, was supposed to be his artist statement. But what turned out instead was what many consider one of the very worst movies of all time.
Wiseau wrote, directed and financed “The Room” back in 2003. However, the result was so bad that it has transcended genres and is now known as a cult disaster comedy. The film was so fascinatingly inept that it seemed too good to be true. Were Wiseau’s intentions genuine? Did he really set out to make a good movie? The answer, we found out, was, quite certainly, yes. And that added to the allure and charm of the picture.
It was assumed Wiseau would never want to make another film after his first catastrophic effort, but if there is anything that sets him apart from the rest it’s his undying and relentless passion for moviemaking. Wiseau is about to release another film entitled “Best F(r)iends” in the coming months.
Meanwhile, we have “The Disaster Artist” making the festival rounds this fall, which could become a cult classic itself as it is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 abomination. The film stars James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Zach Efron, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith and, yes, Bryan Cranston as himself. The film was met with positive reviews at SXSW this past March and is about to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Wiseau has been fairly quiet about the film, but today he’s more or less given his stamp of approval to the whole thing, at least according to James Franco, who spoke to EW about Wiseau’s post-screening reaction.
“He didn’t see it until SXSW, and we were unsure of what he was going to think, especially because he said, [mimicking Wiseau’s accent] ‘Greg book only 40 percent true,’” recalls Franco. “It was like, well, that’s what we based it on, so what are you going to think about our movie? And that screening was so successful, it was like a rock concert. That and the ‘Spring Breakers‘ screening at SXSW [in 2013] would be the two greatest screenings of my life, I imagine. I was like, ‘So, Tommy, what did you think of the movie?’ And he said, ‘I approve 99.9 percent.’ And we were like, ‘What was the 0.1 percent? He said, ‘I think the lighting, in the beginning, a little off.’ [Laughs] I told Brandon [Trost, ‘The Disaster Artist’ cinematographer]. He was like, Yeah, maybe we should watch ‘The Room,’ get some lighting pointers!”
This whole project reeks of cinematic passion, a valentine to movies, an ode to the stinkers which we love and can’t live without. In many ways, “The Disaster Artist” bears similarities to Tim Burton‘s best movie, “Ed Wood,” which also dealt with terrible filmmaking, but ended up being such a sweet, heartfelt love letter to the movies.
“The Disaster Artist” opens on December 1st in limited release and goes wide on December 8th.