At any given time, James Franco is attached to write, direct, produce, star in, and adapt so many different projects that it’s hard to keep track. However, Franco just set another future project in motion that is particularly intriguing. Deadline reports that Franco’s Rabbit Bandini Productions has optioned the book and life rights to The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, which is chronicles the making of Tommy Wiseau’s “so-bad-it’s-good” cult classic The Room. Franco will direct and co-produce the adaptation, and he has also expressed interest in starring in the pic alongside his brother Dave Franco. Moreover, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are onboard as executive producers.
Hit the jump for more, including the synopsis for the book.
The Room is a truly terrible movie, but it’s made with such passion by writer/director/star Tommy Wiseau that it’s a wonderfully entertaining sight to behold. Wiseau has now embraced the pic’s status as a cult classic (Paul Rudd is a notable super-fan of the movie) and even makes appearances at repertory screenings—of course, he now claims that he intended for the movie to be terrible all along. The Disaster Artist was written by The Room actor and co-writer Greg Sestero alongside journalist Tom Bissell and is described as a mix between the amateur behind-the-scenes aspects of Boogie Nights and the odd mentor-pupil relationship of The Master.
If anyone can bring Wiseau’s offbeat persona to the big screen it’s Franco, and I'm incredibly curious to see what he comes up with here. Ryan Moody is penning the screenplay, so hopefully we hear more about the project soon. Watch the trailer for The Room below, followed by the synopsis for The Disaster Room. Good luck getting “You are tearing me apart, Lisa!” out of your head for the rest of the day.
Here’s the synopsis for The Disaster Artist:
Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau’s scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, “I have to do a scene with this guy.” That impulse changed both of their lives. Wiseau seemed never to have read the rule book on interpersonal relationships (or the instructions on a bottle of black hair dye), yet he generously offered to put the aspiring actor up in his LA apartment. Sestero’s nascent acting career first sizzled, then fizzled, resulting in Wiseau’s last-second offer to Sestero of costarring with him in The Room, a movie Wiseau wrote and planned to finance, produce, and direct—in the parking lot of a Hollywood equipment-rental shop.
Wiseau spent $6 million of his own money on his film, but despite the efforts of the disbelieving (and frequently fired) crew and embarrassed (and frequently fired) actors, the movie made no sense. Nevertheless Wiseau rented a Hollywood billboard featuring his alarming headshot and staged a red carpet premiere. The Room made $1800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. One reviewer said that watching The Room was like “getting stabbed in the head.”
The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero’s laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make “the Citizen Kane of bad movies” (Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon, with Wiseau himself beloved as an oddball celebrity. Written with award-winning journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist is an inspiring tour de force that reads like a page-turning novel, an open-hearted portrait of an enigmatic man who will improbably capture your heart. [Amazon]