James Franco Likely To Play Tommy Wiseau In 'The Disaster Artist'

A couple months ago James Franco optioned rights to Greg Sestero's book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room, about the making of Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece of bad cinema, The Room. At that point Franco was set as producer and director, and roped in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to produce alongside him. But it always seemed like Franco had to end up playing Wiseau, too. Now Seth Rogen says that is indeed the plan. 

Recently, Rogen told us a bit about The Disaster Artist, saying to Germain, "The Room movie... I think we just hired two writers on. I'm not sure their deal is closed but they're very exciting, well-known writers that will make the movie incredibly awesome."

That was the jump-off point for Opie and Anthony to ask Rogen about the movie when he showed up in their studio, and Rogen went into a lot of detail about the background of the project. "This won't be an expensive movie," he laughed, before enthusing about the decade-old experience of seeing The Room for the first time.

He also talked about the appeal of Tommy Wiseau as a personality:

What's interesting is he's had to restructure his thoughts on it to some degree. Because he wants the acclaim and attention but all that's associated with somewhat acknowledging that it sucks shit. So I think he's kind of in a weird position where he goes to the Q&As and introduces the screenings and I think now he kind of pretends, 'oh, it's a dark comedy' or something like that. But it's so clear that he's wounded and torn. Which is interesting also — a guy who has to go around and perpetuate something that's being received for all the wrong reasons, basically.

Greg Sistero, or a guy based on him, will be the lead of the movie, but Wiseau would have to be a significant part. When asked who Franco will play, Rogen said "he might play Tommy Wiseau." So it's not set yet, but that seems like a pretty obvious decision to make.

Here's a video presentation of the relevant segment on The Opie & Anthony Show: