🧵 Why The Room Became the Best Worst Movie Ever

The story behind Tommy Wiseau’s so bad it’s good cult classic.

Some movies are bad. Others are really really bad. And there are some that are so bad they become legends. The Room is firmly in the third category - it's a film so spectacularly bad that it has achieved cult status, spawning midnight screenings, meme-worthy one-liners, and an entire Hollywood movie about its bizarre creation. If that’s not what you call success, I don’t know what is.

But how did a film that seemed destined for obscurity become the Citizen Kane of bad movies?

The Mystery of Tommy Wiseau

At the center of The Room is Tommy Wiseau, a man who remains an enigma to this day. No one knows exactly where he’s from, how old he is, or how he managed to finance the movie with a mysterious $6 million. Wiseau claims he’s from New Orleans, but his accent suggests otherwise. Few years back I did a little digging because I thought I am recognizing polish accent in him and I ended up on a reddit thread that confirmed my theory. It is now officially on his wikipedia page, though he never admitted that he actually comes from Poland.

Wherever he is from, the mystery just makes the whole cult around The Room bigger.

Tommy dresses like a rock star from another dimension, wears multiple belts at once, and refuses to reveal the origins of his wealth, only offering vague explanations like having made a fortune selling leather jackets. What is certain is that he was determined to become a Hollywood star, idolizing figures like Tennessee Williams and James Dean. Instead, he ended up creating what many consider the worst movie ever made.

The $6 Million Disaster

Wiseau financed the film himself (allegedly through mysterious means), burning through $6 MILLION on the production.

For reference:

• Paranormal Activity – $15,000

• Blair Witch Project – $60,000

• The Room – $6,000,000 (???!!!)

How? He bought (not rented) two different types of cameras and shot the movie in both digital and 35mm - at the same time.

No one does that. But Tommy did.

Entire sets were built unnecessarily, despite the fact that the real locations were available for free. The production was chaotic, with actors being replaced mid-shoot, bizarre creative choices, and a script that made little to no sense. Characters appear and disappear without explanation. Storylines lead nowhere. The dialogue is stilted, unnatural, and completely out of sync with how real people speak.

Acting That Defies Logic

Wiseau not only directed, produced, and financed The Room, but he also cast himself as the lead character, Johnny. The problem? His performance is unlike anything seen in cinema before. His delivery is robotic, his emotions appear misplaced, and his lines are punctuated by awkward, misplaced laughter. The now-iconic line “You are tearing me apart, Lisa!” was meant to be dramatic but instead became pure comedy because of how unnaturally it was performed. Even a simple greeting like “Oh hi, Mark” is delivered with inexplicable timing and stiffness.

The supporting cast, while more competent than Wiseau, had to struggle through dialogue that made little sense. Take the infamous rooftop scene where Johnny exclaims, “I did not hit her, it’s not true, it’s bullsh*t, I did not hit her, I did not… Oh hi, Mark.” It’s a masterclass in how not to act, yet it’s precisely this kind of bizarre line delivery that made The Room so entertaining.

The Football Scene(s)

Football… is a thing in The Room.

Characters casually throw a football just a few feet apart (wearing tuxedos, for no reason). No explanation. No payoff. At one point, a character falls over and disappears from the movie forever.

It’s beautifully meaningless.

The entire movie is filled with similarly meaningless sequences, from a drug dealer subplot that vanishes without resolution to a mother character casually mentioning she has breast cancer, only for it to never be brought up again. This was my favourite scene. Watch it here:

The Premiere That Changed Everything

When The Room premiered in Los Angeles in 2003, Wiseau rented an entire theater for two weeks in an attempt to drum up interest. The reception was disastrous. Critics panned it, and audiences were left confused. The film should have disappeared into obscurity, but something unexpected happened. People started laughing - just not where Wiseau had intended. What was supposed to be a tragic love story was, in reality, an unintentional comedy. Viewers began embracing it for its sheer absurdity, returning to see it again and again, quoting its bizarre dialogue and reveling in its nonsensical charm. Sensing an opportunity, Wiseau rebranded The Room as a “dark comedy,” despite the fact that none of the humor was intentional.

The Rise of the Midnight Movie Cult Classic

As word spread, The Room found its true home in midnight screenings. Fans turned viewings into interactive experiences, shouting lines back at the screen, throwing plastic spoons in response to random spoon-themed décor in the background, and even tossing footballs around the theater in honor of the film’s many pointless football scenes. It became the modern-day equivalent of The Rocky Horror Picture Show - a film so bizarre, so full of unintentional humor, that it had to be seen with a crowd.

Hollywood eventually took notice. In 2017, James Franco directed and starred in The Disaster Artist, a film about the making of The Room, based on a book written by Greg Sestero, one of the film’s original actors. The movie was a critical success, earning Franco a Golden Globe for his performance as Wiseau, cementing The Room’s legacy as the greatest bad movie of all time.

Why The Room Will Never Die

There are plenty of bad movies out there - but The Room is in a league of its own. What makes it different is that it wasn’t meant to be bad. Tommy Wiseau poured his heart into what he thought would be a heartbreaking drama. That kind of genuine effort, combined with a total lack of filmmaking know-how, is exactly what gives the film its bizarre appeal. It’s a mess of strange decisions, awkward acting, and over-the-top emotion - and somehow, that mess is exactly what keeps people watching.

Years later, The Room is still packing out theaters. People keep sharing it, quoting it, laughing at it, and loving it for what it is. And Wiseau, ever the mystery, seems happy to keep the legend going.

Catch you next time,

Marta