You’ve seen the “Oh hi, Mark” scene, now get ready to watch James Franco go full ramen-slurping, Judd Apatow–harassing, impossible-dream-having Tommy Wiseau in the new full trailer for The Disaster Artist. This is the first glimpse, outside of film-festival screenings, that anyone has gotten of the mad genius of Franco’s performance as the guy who made what is considered the greatest bad movie of all time, The Room. There’s the “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” scene; the one where Tommy, as Johnny, his character who is possibly a vampire, shoots himself in the head and then writhes around in misery; and a moment that I still maintain is the weirdest way anyone has thrown a football.
But the trailer is also curiously devoid of mentions of The Room and the gigantic cult status it attained, instead aiming perhaps a little too broadly to depict this making-of film as the Rocky of bad movies. Which it is! But it’s also way funnier than it appears here. Just know that I saw The Disaster Artist in March at SXSW, and for the second time just now at the Toronto Film Festival, and laughed so hard and so continuously that I cried.
