The Disaster Artist(2017)

The shooting of the film THE ROOM proves to be a nightmarish, gruelling experience for everyone involved. Tommy (James Franco) is careless, unprofessional and extremely inconsiderate and abusive towards all his cast and crew members. He even confronts them when, after secretly recording them -under the excuse of “doing a documentary for the film”-, finds out they mock him and detest him for how dreadful the whole idea is. On top of it, Script Supervisor Sandy (Seth Rogen) personally finds himself fulfilling, more than once, the directorial duties when Tommy fails to step up to it.

Matters come to head between Tommy and Greg (Dave Franco); first, when Tommy refuses to postpone for a few days a sequence in which Greg/”Mark” would appear on screen beardless while he could do a special appearance -bearded- as a lumberjack in “Malcolm in the Middle”, which would have really forwarded his acting career; and then, when, during the filming of a last sequence in a park, fed up with everything, Greg blows up at Tommy for his attitude throughout, they get into a fight and part ways.

Eight months later, Greg is seen as part of a small stage production of The Death Of a Salesman. He is no longer with Amber (Alison Brie). Tommy reconnects with him and invites him to the premiere of The Room, which Greg first doesn’t want to be part of but, then, agrees to attend. That night, Tommy picks him up on a limo and they both arrive to an expecting audience and the whole cast and crew, who showed up.

When the finalized film is shown to the audience, everyone is, at first, taken aback with the poor quality of the result -everyone is panning the images and the actors appear embarrassed at how they see themselves on-screen-. Tommy gets a hold of these reactions, starts crying and walks off, thinking now everyone hates him forever. Nonetheless, Greg comes after him, comforts him and makes him realize that it was, after all, a tremendous effort that he bravely took upon himself. When they return together to the auditory, they notice that people are laughing non-stop and being genuinely entertained. When the screening ends and the credits roll, he thanks the audience for liking his “comedy” and gets a standing ovation.

Title cards inform that Tommy kept the movie running for 2 weeks at that sole theatre, with the hopes of it being looked for Oscar consideration and that, against a budget of reportedly $6 million, the film only turned about $1,800 in profit. However, it later found a life of its own and has become a very profitable midnight cult film since. Tommy and Greg have remained close. And, to this date, Tommy’s age, origins and source of income are still an unconfirmed mystery. The film ends with side-by-side comparing depictions of real scenes from The Room with its equivalent reenactments from The Disaster Artist, as per the cast. Also, there is a post-credits scene where Tommy turns down a partygoer (the real Tommy Wiseau, in a cameo) who wants to hang around.