After twenty years of silence (as a director, anyway), Tommy Wiseau is back with an all-new feature film, his first since the immortal 2003 cult classic “The Room.” Is this cause for celebration or riots? It all depends on what one thinks of Wiseau: a lovable hack, a shameless charlatan, or some seemingly impossible hybrid of both things at once.
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In any case, Wiseau’s next film is “Big Shark,” about three best friend firefighters who must save the city of New Orleans from, that’s right, a really big shark. Along with directing and co-writing the film, Wiseau stars alongside Isaiah LaBorde (who also co-writes the script) and Mark Valeriano. “The Room” actor Greg Sestero, Wiseau’s apparent best friend, was originally part of the film’s production but is nowhere to be seen in the latest trailer. A falling out of some kind, perhaps?
Wiseau rolls out screenings of “Big Shark” with its world premiere at Cinema 21 in Portland, Oregon. There’s a tentative screening schedule that continues through the summer: at Prytania Theatres at Canal Place in New Orleans on April 28-29; the Balboa Theatre in San Francisco on May 5-6; the Landmark Westwood in Los Angeles on June 2-3; and the Village East by Angelika in NYC on August 10-12.
Twenty years ago, “The Room” changed every movie fan’s conception of what a cult movie could possibly be. The romantic drama stars Wiseau, Sestero, and Juliette Danielle as three people caught up in a love triangle. But the film’s infamy stems from the flimsy narrative structure, awful acting, and absurdly inconsistent script. For better or worse, it’s one of this century’s classic cult films. James Franco went on to adapt Sestero’s 2013 book about the film, “The Disaster Artist,” as his own movie in 2017. That’s probably the last time most of us have even thought of Wiseau.
But now “Big Shark” is here to bring the filmmaker back into the purview of popular culture. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? In any case, it is a thing, and Tommy Wiseau did it. Here’s a trailer for that thing below.
