If you have never heard of The Room, it was an attempted romantic movie by the eccentric (guess that’s the right word) Tommy Wiseau, who didn’t really know how to act or write or direct. But it was his dream to make this movie and spent six million dollars of his own money to make this.

The film itself, billed as the “Citizen Kane of bad movies,” was notorious for being so terrible, it was actually great. It gained a massive cult following and got the attention of those in Hollywood who loved this movie. That led to a book written by Wiseau’s friend Greg Sestero on his experiences and that led to James Franco making a movie based on the book called The Disaster Artist.

Okay, caught up? The Disaster Artist is about how Wiseau and Sestero met and the behind-the-scenes filming of The Room. Franco, who plays Wiseau, reportedly stayed method throughout filming and stayed in character as he directed this movie. And as the first teaser shows, Franco nails Wiseau’s character.

This scene is based on a notorious scene from The Room that according to Sestero, took all day to film. It was an seven second clip that was supposed to take maybe a few minutes to film, and Wiseau couldn’t remember the lines that he himself wrote which cost a day of filming. This pretty much encapsulated what was going on The Room set. Here is the actual final scene and see for yourself how similar it is to the Franco version.

In addition, that was an actual rooftop in San Francisco and instead of using the actual San Francisco skyline, used a green screen that had the San Francisco skyline. Yeah…

Anyway, The Disaster Artist is actually a potential contender at the Academy Awards. So just imagine, the real Tommy Wiseau, at the Oscars. For anyone familiar with his story, that would have been something unheard of.

About Phillip Bupp

Producer/editor of the Awful Announcing Podcast and Short and to the Point. News editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. Highlight consultant for Major League Soccer as well as a freelance writer for hire. Opinions are my own but feel free to agree with them.

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