Duo from ‘The Room’ reteaming
Are the makers of “The Room” about to unleash another cult classic in the so-bad-it’s-great genre of filmmaking?
Greg Sestero, an Alamo native, and Tommy Wiseau, his collaborator on the delightfully dreadful “The Room,” announced Tuesday that they have wrapped filming for a new movie called “Best F(r)iends.”
“I think this movie will be a fun, twisted journey that will surprise people,” Sestero said in an email.
Judging from the trailer, posted on The Hollywood Reporter’s website, this new project by Sestero and Wiseau looks — well — interesting.
In it, a man (Sestero) is seen making his way across the desert to the big city, where he begs by the side of a highway, holding up a cardboard sign that says his family has been “kidnapped by ninjas.” A lonely mortician in a hearse (Wiseau) pulls up and offers the man a “little job,” but we all know that the mortician has something else in mind.
The announcement about “Best F(r)iends” comes as “The Masterpiece,” a film directed and starring James Franco about the making of “The Room” is doing well in test screenings, Sestero says.
Franco’s film, due in theaters sometime in 2017, is based on 2013 book “The Disaster Artist.” A collaboration with journalist Tom Bissell, it’s Sestero’s humorous account of trying to make it in Hollywood and of working with the mysterious and eccentric Wiseau.
When Wiseau set out to write, direct and produce “The Room,” he had no filmmaking experience. But that didn’t stop him from making a domestic drama (if you can call it that), featuring bizarre dialogue, massive plot holes and some impossible-to-describe acting, especially from Wiseau.
But cinephiles caught on to its unique charms, and “The Room” gained a “Rocky Horror”-like following with midnight showings across the country.
Sestero told the Hollywood Reporter that the inspiration for “Best F(r)iends” came from a road trip he took with Wiseau in 2003. He brought the role of the mortician to Wiseau, who was intrigued by the character.
This time, Wiseau didn’t direct. The cast and crew filmed in August and September in Los Angeles and Canada. They’re hoping for a theatrical release around Halloween 2017.