Bob Odenkirk Vows to Make ‘The Room’ Remake a ‘Real Movie’: ‘I’m Not Mocking’ Tommy Wiseau
Bob Odenkirk’s dream is for cult hit “The Room” to be considered, in the immortal words of Harry Styles, a real film movie.
The “Better Call Saul” alum is set to take on the role of Johnny, as originated by writer-director Tommy Wiseau, for a remake of the 2003 film. The remake will benefit amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, with Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel, Justin Decloux, Brando Crawford, Cameron Kasky, Arturo Castro, and Bella Heathcote rounding out the cast.
“The Room” follows San Francisco resident Johnny as he grapples with his fiancée cheating on him with his best friend. A first look at the philanthropic remake showed original cast member Greg Sestero on set.
Yet the outrageous script cemented the would-be Shakespearean tragedy “The Room” into cult B-movie status — something that Odenkirk singlehandedly wants to undo.
“I don’t change the lines, but I do them my own way, in a way that hopefully feels legit and real,” Odenkirk told Entertainment Weekly. “And I think I pulled it off some, and then there are scenes that I just couldn’t. You just can’t make them legitimate. I mean, they’re insane. The things that people are saying are so insane!”
The Emmy winner continued, “I’m not mocking Tommy’s performance or even mocking the script. I’m going, ‘This is your script. Bob Odenkirk, this is your part. How are you going to make it real and make it feel legit?’ My dream is that you watch it, and even just for one or two scenes, you go, ‘Wow, OK! That’s a real movie, I’d watch that!’ You just think for one second, ‘Am I watching a genuine performance and am I actually a little bit touched by ‘The Room’?'”
The “Room” remake will use the actual still frames of the real 2003 film to use as backdrops behind Odenkirk and the rest of the cast, who shot the film against a green screen.
“I said, ‘Can I just do it as though I, Bob Odenkirk, got the part — and my job is to try to sell you on it and do it as well as I can?'” Odenkirk recalled. “So we’ll see if I did it, but man, I had fun! We laughed our asses off… And for charity! I hope they raise a lot of money.”
The behind-the-scenes making of “The Room” was previously brought to the big screen with 2017’s “The Disaster Artist,” starring James Franco as Wiseau. Franco won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in the film written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and adapted from actor Sestero’s memoir “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside ‘The Room,’ the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made.”
“It wasn’t that long ago we were outsiders, dying to break into the business,” Weber told IndieWire at the time. “We believed in each other when no one else believed in us, when most of the people around us thought our dream was ridiculous. That’s Tommy and Greg’s story.”