Tommy Wiseau, the director of the film once called “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”, has forced the Sydney Underground film festival to an unexpected milestone: its first ever cancelled screening.
Wiseau has threatened the festival with legal action before its proposed screening of Room Full of Spoons, Rick Harper’s investigation into Wiseau and the cult following behind his 2003 film, The Room.
The director of the Sydney Underground film festival, Stephen Popescu, says the legal threats hit them from left-field.
“This is the biggest censorship issue our festival has ever had,and it is not from the government – it’s from the man who has delusions of cinematic adequacy, Tommy Wiseau,” he said. “We see the humour and irony in being censored for the first time in a decade by the man who is reputed to be one of the world’s worst filmmakers.”
Screenings of Room Full of Spoons will be replaced by what the festival calls “Wiseau-sanctioned” screenings of The Room itself.
The Room is a favourite of midnight movie audiences around the world. Screenings are often highly interactive, with audience members shouting in response to particular lines and throwing plastic spoons at the screen.
Room Full of Spoons comes after the release of The Disaster Artist, a non-fiction book by one of Wiseau’s former collaborators and stars of The Room, Greg Sestero.
Last year, James Franco announced that he had bought the film rights to The Disaster Artist; the forthcoming film, now titled The Masterpiece, also stars Seth Rogen.
