A shot-for-shot remake of "The Room," the 2003 film widely regarded as the worst movie ever made, has appeared online under the title "The Room Returns," starring Bob Odenkirk of "Better Call Saul" and "Better Call Saul" spinoff fame in the lead role. The 65-minute film, directed by Brando Crawford, reproduces Tommy Wiseau's infamous cult picture scene by scene, this time played with straight-faced seriousness rather than the accidental camp of the original.
The cast also includes Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel, Bella Heathcote, Arturo Castro, Greg Sestero, Rebecca Brown and Crawford himself. Sestero's presence is notable: he played Mark, one of the three leads, in the original 2003 film.
The Worst Film Ever Made
"The Room" told the story of a love triangle between the banker Johnny, played by Wiseau, his fiancee Lisa, played by Juliette Danielle, and his best friend Mark, played by Sestero. The film ran for about ninety minutes of clumsy acting, nonsensical dialogue and a plot that barely holds together. It flopped at the box office on release but slowly built a following as a midnight cult screening, joining the ranks of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Pink Flamingos" and "Eraserhead." Audiences turned out in noisy groups, its lines became catchphrases, and it eventually spawned a wave of internet memes. Among the film's most quoted lines is Johnny's plaintive "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"
Tommy Wiseau's Chaotic Production
Wiseau, the film's writer, director and star, has always kept his biography shrouded in mystery; even his friends reportedly knew little about his past. With a memorable look, an unmistakable Eastern European accent and dreams of breaking into Hollywood that never materialized, Wiseau appears to have had access to considerable money. When he decided to make his own film after being turned down at auditions, he bought expensive equipment outright instead of renting it. The shoot became notorious in Hollywood lore: the crew worked from a script that made little sense and kept changing by the minute, sets were torn down only to be rebuilt the next day, and actors and crew members were repeatedly fired and reshuffled. Wiseau, who cast himself in the lead, dragged out his own scenes for days because he could not remember the monologues he had written.
From Cult Classic to Disaster Artist
The status of worst film in history turned out to be something of a gift from the picture's growing fan base, and "The Room" gradually became a small franchise. In 2017, James Franco directed "The Disaster Artist," based on a memoir by Sestero about the making of the film. Franco played Wiseau himself, while his own brother, Dave Franco, played Sestero. Six years later, Odenkirk took on the task of embodying the same larger-than-life role.
A Charity Project With Bob Odenkirk
"The Room Returns" is primarily a charity venture. It comes from Crawford, founder of Acting for a Cause, a company that has staged low-budget productions and readings since 2020 with all proceeds going to charity. Its repertoire has mostly consisted of theatrical classics such as "Hamlet," "Pride and Prejudice" and "Jane Eyre," performed by casts that have included young celebrities such as Margaret Qualley, Jacob Elordi and Natalia Dyer.
In 2023, Crawford changed course, taking the script of the "worst film in history" and casting Odenkirk, then 63, in the lead. The "Nobody" and "Better Call Saul" star turned the part into his own acting experiment. After several charity screenings, the film sat unreleased for three years before Wiseau allowed it to be put out on streaming platforms. Odenkirk approached the material with notable respect, deliberately avoiding the exaggerated performance style that made Wiseau's own turn as Johnny so unintentionally comic.
What The Room Returns Gets Right and Wrong
Odenkirk's Johnny largely steers clear of farce, aside from a few awkward scenes involving a game of catch, and comes across as a genuinely tragic figure, particularly given the story's bloody ending. In other respects, though, "The Room Returns" falls well short of the original. Every scene was shot against a green screen, the camerawork is limited to static shots, and the whole production has the feel of an amateur YouTube video from the early 2000s. The original film, for all its flaws, had a considerably larger budget, though the widely cited figure of six million dollars is likely exaggerated.
The biggest disappointment for fans is the removal of all the film's sex scenes. Viewers hoping for lengthy erotic sequences featuring a shirtless Odenkirk will be let down, given how large a role bed scenes played in the original film, taking up roughly a third of its runtime. Given the cuts, the remake might fairly be subtitled "The Room Returns: Censored."
Still, there is something fitting about Hollywood stars replaying an amateur film that was itself made by outsiders rejected by the industry, who tried to build something of their own on its margins. Their creation was clumsy and strange, but even in its chaos it carried unexpectedly sharp observations about friendship, love and the often illogical, inconsistent nature of life itself.
