James Franco has lined up his next directorial outing: a film about the making of the 2003 cult classic The Room. Directed by Tommy Wiseau, The Room is widely considered one of the worst movies of all time. Upon its initial release, it played in a handful of Los Angeles cinemas to mostly empty houses, but after time it resurfaced at the city’s popular arthouse theater, Laemmle 5, as a midnight favorite. Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd are among its celebrity fans.
According to the Hollywood Reporter Franco’s film, The Disaster Artist, bears the same name as the 2013 non-fiction book co-written by one of the stars of The Room, Greg Sestero. The book chronicles what it was like to work with Wiseau, who had no film-making experience prior to writing, directing, producing and starring in The Room.
Franco bought the rights to the book back in early 2014, and confessed to being a fan of the film in his Vice review of The Room and its ensuing book. “In so many ways,” Franco wrote for Vice, “Tommy c’est moi.”
Franco will play Wiseau, with his brother, Dave Franco, in talks to play Sestero. Frequent collaborator Seth Rogen, who has signed on to produce, is also due to star. The pair last worked together on The Interview, about a bid to assassinate Kim Jong-un which almost caused an international incident after an infuriated response from North Korea lead to the postponing of its theatrical release. The film was also assumed to have provoked a massive computer hack of Sony Pictures.
The Disaster Artist, which should prove less controversial, will begin shooting in December. Meanwhile Franco’s film adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury, came out last week in US cinemas.
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