At the end of each year, critics often like to gather their worst films of the year, but as each calendar gets tossed out, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a film more incompetently enjoyable than Tommy Wiseau‘s The Room. Produced for $6 million and then originally released in 2003 to the meager box-office sum of $1,900, it has since spawned a cult following like few others, heavily touring the midnight circuit, with fan participation wildly encouraged.
The film, but more specifically its production, has now caught the eyes of James Franco and his Rabbit Bandini Productions company. According to Deadline, they’ve now optioned the book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, detailing actor Greg Sestero‘s account on the production of the film — co-written with Tom Bissell — to be made into a feature-length production that Franco will direct and co-produce.
With Franco already publishing an article on his love of the film and subsequent novel for Vice — in which he calls Wiseau “part vampire, part Hollywood dreamer, part gangster, part Ed Wood, and super lonely,” and compares then novel to Boogie Nights and The Master — we have to imagine he’d be in the running for taking on the role of Wiseau, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, check out the trailer for the book below, along with a highlight reel from the film.
Do you believe The Room is the worst film ever made? What do you think about Franco taking on this project?