Join us at the Khyber for Halifax’s first official viewing of Tommy Wiseau’s infamous “The Room”. It will be a real treat and is not to be missed. Thursday August 27th, 8:30pm, $2 admission.
From Wikipedia:
The Room began as a play and a novel by Tommy Wiseau, which he wanted to turn into a film. After failing to get his idea within the Hollywood system, he wrote the script himself and spent five years developing and fundraising the project independently until he could shoot it himself. Wiseau told Entertainment Weekly that he raised some of his funds by importing leather jackets from Korea. He eventually amassed $6 million, all of which was spent on production and marketing.
According to Greg Ellery, the actor who portrayed Steven in The Room, Wiseau came to the Birns and Sawyer film lot, rented a studio, and bought a “complete Beginning Director package,” which included the purchase of both a brand new $100,000 film camera and a $50,000 digital camera (keep in mind that is not include any lens, other gears etc.) intended for shooting the “making of.” Wiseau, confused about the differences between 35 mm film and high-definition video, decided to shoot the entire film in both formats with two cameras side-by-side on the same mount. This experiment allowed Wiseau to compare the formats on a large scale, and he plans to use the information that he gathered for a DVD documentary and a book.
Principal photography lasted eight months. It was mainly shot in Los Angeles, but some second-unit shooting was done in San Francisco where the film is set. The film employed over 400 people, and Wiseau is credited as an actor (in the leading role of Johnny), an executive producer, the writer, the producer, and the director. Wiseau had a number of problems with his behind-the-camera team, and replaced the entire crew two times.
The original script was actually much longer than the shooting script and contained numerous wordy monologues and more irrelevant information. The script was heavily edited on set by the script supervisor and the actors. One anonymous cast member said that the script contained “stuff that was just unsayable. I know it’s hard to imagine there was stuff that was worse. But there was.”