Of all the weird, unlikely movies to become cult hits, perhaps The Room is the one toughest to explain. Tommy Wiseau's odd little film, referred to by some as one of the worst movies ever back in 2003, has grown in reputation and recognition over the last decade, to the point where it still screens somewhere practically every Friday night to packed crowds of adoring, line-quoting fans. Among those adoring fans is James Franco, who has decided he wants to make a movie about the making of the movie.
Franco has picked up the rights to The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, based on the book by Greg Sestero, who co-starred and co-wrote The Room, and so had an inside view at the incredible production. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will produce, and it looks as if James and his brother Dave Franco will take the top acting roles.
In his review of Sestero's book for Vice, Franco draws a connection between the works of Paul Thomas Anderson, which may clue us in to the approach he plans to take...
"The book reads like the combination of two Paul Thomas Anderson film scripts: Boogie Nights in its focus on a group of optimistic outsiders trying to be artistic with a project that defies all artistic pretentions, and The Master with its arrangement around a bizarre mentor-pupil relationship….Because this book, The Disaster Artist, is about a bad movie, and because Tommy Wiseau could be so easily mocked, one can see how such a book could turn into a thin recounting of all the crazy things that happened, simply to make fun of them. Instead the book is both a great portrayal of hopefuls coming to Los Angeles to pursue their ambitions, and an even greater examination of what it means to be a creative person with a dream, and trying to make it come true in a form that is just as much a business, and an insider social group, as it is an art."
Franco's fascination with the making of somewhat underground cult flicks has been seen before with Interior. Leather Bar, a recreation of scenes from the controversial 1980 film, Cruising. So in a way his tackling the making of The Room seems like a perfect fit. [Deadline]
