James Franco was born to play Tommy Wiseau, the man behind what's become "The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made,” 2003's The Room.
In The Disaster Artist (out December 1), Franco directs and stars as Wiseau, the eccentric director-actor-producer-writer whose cult status is directly linked to the peculiar appeal of The Room. Critics have panned The Room as much as they've praised it in think pieces. Tom Bissell, a journalist and critic, helped pen the tell-all book Franco used to bring his latest project to life. Speaking to Vox earlier this summer, Bissell described The Room as "a movie made by an alien who has never seen a movie but has had movies thoroughly explained to him." It's about a banker, his fiancée, and his best friend. They're entangled in some love triangle that veers into absurdity with a myriad of subplots that never quite reach a conclusion.
The trailer gives audiences a look into one of the film's most famous scenes, the "Oh, hi Mark!" Franco is joined by his brother Dave and frequent collaborator Seth Rogen. It is, perhaps, the most James Franco thing James Franco has done: play an artist hell-bent on his vision that is so unbelievably messy it's endearing.
This project, however, is actually garnering praise. The audience at The Disaster Artist's SXSW screening gave it a standing ovation, with some critics calling it "so incredibly beautiful and sad and hilarious and so perfectly absurdly real." C'mon subversion!
