The 2003 film The Room is so weird and so bad that it’s widely lauded as the best worst movie ever made, earning it cult status on par with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, more than a decade after it premiered, it’s inspired The Disaster Artist, a fictional film about how The Room was made, starring and directed by James Franco.
The first teaser for A24’s film dropped Monday, offering a peek at Franco as The Room‘s writer-director-producer-star Tommy Wiseau. According to the Hollywood Reporter, his brother Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero, Wiseau’s co-star whose memoir about making the movie served as inspiration for The Disaster Artist. Seth Rogen plays a script supervisor struggling to keep the movie from going off the rails, and the film features appearances from Sharon Stone, Bryan Cranston, Zac Efron, and Alison Brie.
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The trailer showcases one of The Room’s strangest scenes, in which Wiseau ambles onto a rooftop and delivers a garbled monologue about how he didn’t hit his love interest before offering a casual “Oh, hi Mark” to his co-star. Franco’s gone full Wiseau—unplaceable accent, weird suit jacket, long hair, and all—and it looks like his decision to remain in character while simultaneously directing and starring in The Disaster Artist paid off.
The film earned glowing reviews after its premiere at SXSW, with SlashFilm calling it “wonderful,” Vulture predicting it to “join Tim Burton’s Ed Wood in the ranks of great movies about terrible movies,” and Variety mulling the prospect of an Oscar win.
Check out the trailer above to see what all the hype’s about—and if you’ve never seen The Room, peep a few of its greatest moments for a sense of what else The Disaster Artist has to offer.
The Disaster Artist premieres December 8.
