There are a lot of questions surrounding The Room. Why Tommy Wiseau made any of the creative decisions that he did would be the obvious place to start, but there’s so much more to this critical dumpster fire turned ironic classic than what we saw onscreen. Appropriate for a film that can only be watched in a state of wide-eyed perplexity, the behind-the-scenes details prove equally as fascinating – in fact, they’re even stranger. The Room cost $6 million, a frankly ridiculous amount for something that looks as bad as this, although the reason for much of it can be placed on its high cast and crew turnover and Wiseau’s ignorance about serving as an effective producer (alongside the infamous “Evil Man” billboard that cost upwards of $300,000). However, the most interesting part was that Wiseau funded the entire budget himself, leading to the obvious question of how he earned such wealth. The secretive nature of the film’s director-producer-writer-lead actor-executive producer means we will probably never get a solid answer, but several theories have emerged to illuminate one of modern cinema's most enigmatic figures.

But first, we have the quote-on-quote “official” story. In a 2008 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Wiseau – when he wasn’t repeating the dubious claim that The Room was always supposed to be a comedy – provided his only public explanation for how he acquired $6 million. “We import from Korea the leather jackets that we design here in America. If you work, you have to save money, right?”. It’s an explanation that raises yet more questions (not helped by Wiseau prefacing it by saying this was only “a little bit” of the full story), but it still doesn’t clarify how he got the money to start this business or how it became profitable enough to fund a feature-length film. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that there’s more going on here… it’s just a shame that everything else remains cloaked in speculation.

"The Disaster Artist" Helps To Explain The Room’s Bizarre Origins

Tommy Wiseau in The Room
Image via TPW Films

The best source we have for anything concerning The Room is Greg Sestero. In addition to portraying the character of Mark and serving as the film’s line producer, Sestero also had the pleasure of being one of Wiseau’s closest friends, having met him years earlier at an acting class in San Francisco. When Wiseau began production on The Room, Sestero agreed to help in a behind-the-scenes capacity, but was eventually persuaded to take on a leading role after Mark’s original actor was fired on his first day of filming. His experiences during the four-month shoot may well have been one embarrassing moment after another, but they also provided him with ample material that would later populate the film’s brilliant companion novel, The Disaster Artist.

Written in conjunction with famed video game author Tom Bissell, the book details Sestero’s entire involvement with The Room, covering every strange, hilarious, and downright baffling occurrence that allowed this monstrosity to see the light of day. It’s a brilliant read, and well worth checking out even for those who have already watched James Franco’s 2017 adaptation (a flawed but generally entertaining film). A substantial part of The Disaster Artist sees Sestero recounting the various anecdotes that Wiseau has extolled to him over the years, making it ideal for any rookie historians seeking to unearth The Room’s fabled history. Sadly, the absence of stone-cold evidence to substantiate Wiseau’s claims makes it difficult to tell how much faith we should place in them, but they make for an enthralling origin story regardless.

According to Wiseau, He Made His Fortune via Real-Estate in San Francisco

The Room Tommy Wiseau
Image via TPW Films

According to Wiseau (by way of Sestero), his rise to power began in the late 1970s following his relocation to San Francisco. In need of money, he responds to an advert in the local paper looking for someone to sell yo-yos on Fisherman's Wharf, a busy neighborhood on the city’s northern waterfront where tourists can get picturesque views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. The job proves successful, leading to Wiseau going independent to maximize his profits. Before long, his business expands to include other items like toy birds, earning him the nickname “The Birdman” which later becomes the basis for his new legal name (Wiseau, derived from the French word oiseau, meaning bird. Yes, Tommy Wiseau wasn’t his birth name). He supplements his income with various menial jobs such as one at a restaurant he’d first become acquainted with after being kicked out for using the bathroom without being a paying customer. His life is not easy, but it is a life – one that he has big ambitions for.

And then, upon meeting Drew Caffrey, everything changes. Who exactly Caffrey was is unknown – Sestero describes him as a father figure to Wiseau who was “central to his inimitable rise” – but his appearance coincided with a sudden uptake in Wiseau’s livelihood. Shortly after becoming friends, Wiseau opened a stall at an indoor marketplace that sold an assortment of trinkets, ranging from clothing to key chains (in addition to the tried and tested bird toys). Later still, he would move into a large retail space in a building on Fisherman's Wharf – a building he would eventually buy outright. More properties would follow, allowing Wiseau to build his own retail empire in northern San Francisco. When the time came to sell one of these buildings, he did so for a whopping $2.9 million – a fortune described by Sestero as one “founded on yo-yos and toy birds”. Caffrey would later be credited on The Room as an executive producer and a casting director, which is a little odd considering that he died in 1999, two years before Wiseau even had a script. Yet another mystery to add to the equation.

It's worth remembering that little of the previous two paragraphs are supported by evidence. It is confirmed that Wiseau owned at least one building on Fisherman's Wharf where he housed a discount jeans store called Street Fashions USA (there’s even an advert for it from 1998 starring Wiseau, and it’s just as amusing as you’d think). The Disaster Artist expands on this by saying that a sizeable chunk of second-unit footage was shot on its rooftop, including all of the footage that would later be composited onto the green screens for The Room’s infamous exterior scenes. However, the other details remain unverified… assuming there even is anything to verify. The story of a Polish immigrant going from rags to riches without ever leaving the San Francisco Bay Area is one straight from a Hollywood movie, and considering Wiseau’s well-documented love for classic American films like A Streetcar Named Desire and Citizen Kane, it’s not inconceivable to suggest that they influenced the idealistic depiction of his rise to power. It’s unlikely that he’s outright lying about his time in San Francisco, but there are almost certainly a few gaps in his resumé.

Others Explanations for the Film’s Budget Have Also Been Suggested

In the decades since The Room’s release, various theories have surfaced to explain how Wiseau procured $6 million. Some – like the suggestion that he’s D. B. Cooper, the unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 in 1971 – are so outlandish that even Wiseau finds them perplexing, but others have at least stayed in the realm of possibility. The Disaster Artist recounts another of Wiseau’s unproved tales about a car accident in San Francisco, and online sleuths have hypothesized that it involved a prominent Hollywood producer whose quick out-of-court settlement explained Wiseau’s sudden influx of money. Of course, this is just speculation, as is the idea posited by some of the film’s crew that The Room was just a money-laundering operation to clean Wiseau’s illegally gotten dollars. Sestero has made it clear that he doesn’t believe this theory – raising the valid point that such operations are supposed to keep quiet, not doing everything they can to catapult themselves to international fame – but in the mad world of Tommy Wiseau, nothing can be ruled out.

Given how protective Wiseau is of his private life – not to mention how the 2016 documentary Room Full of Spoons proves that he is not above rewriting the truth, such as his age or place of birth – there’s a strong possibility that we will never know the full story behind The Room’s $6 million budget. In a strange way, that’s appropriate. So much of The Room’s appeal comes from its idiosyncratic quality that flies in the face of coherent storytelling, resulting in an offbeat experience that feels akin to someone trying to write the Great American Novel despite never having read another book. The Room is the perfect example of a so-bad-it’s-good movie, and trying to explain how it came to be would only demystify its cherished reputation. Only one person can answer where its budget came from, and if twenty years of stardom and providing the influence for an Academy Award-nominated film isn’t enough to loosen his lips, it’s doubtful that anything will. To quote Sestero: “Money, you could say, is the elephant in The Room”. How accurate that is.