The Room Remake Starring Bob Odenkirk Was Shot In A Single Day
In what is possibly one of the most elaborate anti-jokes in recent memory, a remake of Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" starring Bob Odenkirk will take the entire thing dead seriously. The volunteer organization Acting for a Cause has produced and staged the charity project for amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, with company creator Brando Crawford acting as director. Those who worked on the project have promised to not treat Wiseau's shining beacon of unintentional hilarity for laughs, including longtime comedian Bob Odenkirk, who tweeted out how excited he was about participating in this momentous occasion.
Created during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, Acting for a Cause usually stages script readings of plays and films over laptop video conference meetings. However, "The Room" will be more elaborate than the average table read, incorporating green screens to replicate scenes in the original film. The lack of location changes allowed the entire production to take one day to shoot, but that doesn't mean that any of the cast phoned it in. On the contrary, Crawford expressed to Empire that he "wanted to treat it like Aaron Sorkin [adapting] Shakespeare," and Odenkirk himself promised in Den of Geek that he planned on making his performance "honest and organic to the scene."
A Shakespearean approach
Crawford's "The Room" remake will also star Bella Heathcote ("Dark Shadows," "The Neon Demon") as Lisa, Kate Siegel ("The Haunting of Hill House," "Midnight Mass") as her mother Claudette, Siegel's filmmaker husband Mike Flanagan as the therapist Peter, and, reprising his role in the original film, Greg Sestero. Other members of the cast include Arturo Castro ("Broad City," "Narcos") and activist Cameron Kasky participated in the project out of sheer love for Wiseau's weird, wonderful drama. "I love that movie. I love everything about it. I love the phenomenon of it," he told Den of Geek. Crawford told Empire that even though "Bob's at the peak of his career right now [...] he's doing this because 'The Room' and the premise of what we wanted to do with it felt special to him."
Crawford himself has also approached the material with respect. "There's a possibility that Tommy's work will be revered the same way [as Shakespeare] in a hundred years, because of the way that history reinvents things constantly," he expressed. "We're just speeding up the process." Crawford has shared behind-the-scenes photos on his Instagram, as has Flanagan (via Twitter), meaning that all that's left is distribution plans. The much-anticipated remake should be available digitally sometime in June to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the debut of the original "The Room." And if you're left with a hankering for more Tommy Wiseau, you can check out the trailer for his long-anticipated follow-up, "Big Shark."