Wiseau’s ‘The Room’ Turns 20

In 2003, “The Room,” a film financed by self-proclaimed impresario Tommy Wiseau for $6 million, was supposed to be the culmination of his imagined talents, his ultimate artistic statement, and the capstone to his suspiciously vague career. But what turned out instead was what many consider to be one of the worst movies of all time.

The film turns 20 today with its odd legacy still intact. In fact, 20th anniversary screenings are happening, in several states, throughout the country this evening. “The Room” has turned into the kind of monster not even Wiseau had imagined.

Wiseau made “The Room” in a vain attempt to salvage his own 500-page novel that no publisher wanted to touch. However, the resulting mish-mash was so bad that it has defied categorization to become a cult-classic comedy disaster.

The film was such a compellingly inept trainwreck that it seemed too awful to be real. Were Wiseau’s intentions truly genuine? Did he really set out to make a good movie or was he aiming for outrageous satire? As told in the memoir by Wiseau’s best friend Greg Sestero, we discovered the horrifying truth: that Wiseau’s intentions were very sincere.

These sincere, albeit delusional, aspects of Wiseau’s film is what seems to have clicked with audiences over the years. The dialogue in “The Room” feels like someone hired a third-grader to write the screenplay. The performances are wooden, and the sex scenes are some of the most howlingly funny in cinematic history.

How did “The Room” cost six million dollars to make? Where exactly did all that money go to during production? We learned, via various court processes, that Wiseau had filmed the movie using both SD and HD cameras, which he had bought himself.

What’s odd about this is that movie studios typically rent out cameras because technology is constantly changing and improving and you don't want to get stuck with obsolete equipment. But not Mr. Wiseau. No siree. Wiseau outright bought the cameras and filmed “The Room” on HD digital and 35mm.

Wiseau was an L.A. oddball whose age, source of income, and nationality were unknowm. He claimed his entire family hailed from New Orleans, but his distinct Eastern European accent belied that tale. Unlike most directors, his only prior claim to fame in the public eye had been as a street vendor in San Francisco.

One way or another, Wiseau somehow amassed a fortune as a real-estate entrepreneur, his claim, and invested $6 million for “The Room.” Though universally ridiculed, it enjoyed an unexpected resurrection as a cult classic , with recurrent, raucous screenings worldwide.

In 2017, James Franco directed a highly entertaining film based on the making of “The Room.” He decided to put on a straight face and take it all very seriously, bringing a hilariously endearing vibe to his film.

Franco claimed that Wiseau mostly liked the film: “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? 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.’

Despite his lack of directing, screenwriting and acting talents, Wiseau has an undying and overtly relentless passion for moviemaking. He’s basically turned into a 21st century Ed Wood.