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James Franco to Direct Film on the Making of Cult Favorite 'The Room'

by Ethan Anderton
February 10, 2014
Source: Deadline

By now, plenty of cinephiles have become familiar with Tommy Wiseau's cult classic film The Room which is known for being such a train wreck of a film that it's nearly impossible to look away. The film has been called the worst movie ever made by plenty, and now we'll get to see how it all came together on the big screen. Deadline reports the ever-busy James Franco and his Rabbit Bandini Productions have picked up the rights to The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made, a book published last fall about the making of the $6 million film catastrophe which plays Adult Swim occasionally.

The book was written by Greg Sestero (with journalist Tom Bissell) who co-wrote and starred in the film with Wiseau, and chronicles the troubled production that fired crew members and actors left and right who just didn't believe in the director's vision. But the film went on to make a whopping $1800 at the box office, and has inexplicably become a beloved dud in the same arena as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (though the popular musical is vastly superior to the disaster that is The Room). Franco has plenty of praise for the book in his review written at Vice where he says:

"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. The other references that come to mind, and they are mostly film references because it is a book about film and the film industry, are 'Sunset Boulevard,' with the masterful way it takes on Hollywood as a vehicle to talk about the blurred line between reality and performance, and 'The Talented Mr. Ripley,' the Anthony Mingella film (as well as the Patricia Highsmith book) in the way that Tom Ripley transforms himself, or attempts to transform himself, in order to infiltrate a social world that he would otherwise be locked out of."

Franco will direct the film and also produce the adaptation along with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's Point Grey Productions. When Franco posted about the news on Instagram, he said the film would star the Franco brothers, so it sounds like James and Dave Franco will lead the film, but maybe they'll just have supporting roles. While one can easily assume that Franco, Rogen and Goldberg would just turn this into a comedic romp, it sounds like Franco really wants to turn this into a genuine chronicle of the odd production.

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