“It’s as if an alien came down from outer space, watched soap operas for a week, and went back to its planet and created a movie based on human interaction.”
That’s how one fan described The Room to star Greg Sestero after seeing the 2003 box-office flop, which became a classic of such cult status that he wrote a memoir about its production, which, in turn, was made into the 2017 film The Disaster Artist. Now, a shot-for-shot retelling of the mysterious Tommy Wiseau’s magnum opus, starring Bob Odenkirk, is coming to Sydney – and there’s a heritage-listed cinema’s monthly tradition to thank for it.
Watch the video below to see our exclusive interview with Sestero and Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace general manager and licensee Alex Temesvari, with the venue’s spirited screenings of what’s widely considered one of the worst films ever made only one part of The Room’s legend.
It started out as a passion project from Wiseau, who directed, wrote and produced the film with the dream of making a great American drama.
The Room cost $US6 million ($16 million today) to make, and Wiseau paid for the entire production himself. To this day, nobody knows where he is from, how he acquired his wealth, or even his age.
Not even Sestero, who has an extraordinary friendship with him and was the only person on set who could speak Wiseau’s language, and was the voice of reason amid the film’s beautiful chaos.
“Being on set, every day was a surprise,” Sestero told this masthead. “Certain movies are of their time, and they really sparked and had lightning in a bottle that you could never recreate.”
The Room was mostly unknown and savaged by critics, but it continued midnight screenings in Los Angeles, where it caught the attention of college students.
Not much is known about Tommy Wiseau, not even by co-star and friend Greg Sestero. Wiseau, pictured above in The Room, self-funded the production, which was a passion project and a box-office flop.Credit:
They fell in love with its poor quality and hilarious inconsistencies, and started the tradition of throwing spoons and shouting lines.
Thanks to this, what began as a failed film quietly snowballed into a global phenomenon, with audiences throwing spoons and shouting at Sydney’s Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace’s screen every month for more than 12 years.
“Our first screening of The Room was in late 2013, that was around the 10th anniversary of the film, and it had just started gaining this sort of cult buzz overseas, particularly in LA,” Temesvari told this masthead.
“We thought, ‘Look, this hasn’t run in Sydney ever. Let’s give it a crack.’ But we imagined it as a one-off screening ... we sold out our biggest theatre, 700 seats, and it was the most chaotic and just wonderfully wacky night out of the cinema.”
Greg Sestero (left) and Bob Odenkirk both star in the tribute retelling of The Room (2003), The Room Returns!, which Sydney audiences will get to see on August 1.Credit: @gregsestero
Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace is not the only venue that hosts raucous The Room screenings, but it is the No.1 highest-grossing venue for them in the world, so it makes sense that Sestero will attend the special preview screening of The Room tribute on August 1.
The Room Returns! is a 30-minute retelling of the original’s most iconic scenes. Directed by Brando Crawford and produced by the charity Acting for a Cause, it features Bob Odenkirk playing Johnny, alongside Brando Crawford, Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel and Bella Heathcote. The tribute was filmed in one day on a green screen using the original script — this time, played completely straight.
To hear more about the making of The Room from Sestero, why audiences worldwide throw spoons at the screen while watching one of the most notorious and underappreciated films of all time, and why Odenkirk felt the need to star in a tribute film, watch the video above.
The Room Returns!, a tribute film starring Bob Odenkirk as Johnny, premieres at Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace on August 1. Click here for more information.
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