According to Variety, a Canadian judge has ordered Tommy Wiseau—director and star of cult movie hit The Room—to pay about $700,000 to the filmmakers behind a documentary about The Room. The judge determined that Wiseau was trying to unfairly thwart the release of the documentary because it included clips from his movie and because it revealed information about his real age, name, and birthplace (we won’t say it here in cause you’d prefer to remain blissfully unaware of his true origins, but we will say that it rhymes with “Shmoland”). Unfortunately for Wiseau, the content of the documentary was ruled to fall under “fair dealing” (which is apparently the equivalent of our “fair use”), and the details about Wiseau’s true identity do not “meet the high standard for a civil offense in Canada.”
The movie is called Room Full Of Spoons, and the filmmakers (Richard Harper, Fernando Ferero McGrath, Mark Racicot, and Richard Towns) had originally intended to release it closer to the release of The Disaster Artist to capitalize on the Room fever that had swept the nation. Wiseau tried to sue them to stop the release and apparently exhibited “oppressive and outrageous” behavior and “bad faith negotiations” to try and stall the release of the documentary. He reportedly demanded “excessive sums” to license The Room clips, wanted to get final approval of the documentary, and at one point asked for the movie to be “60 percent” more positive.
The judge said Wiseau also “behaved erratically” once this dispute went to trial and avoided answering questions when he testified, which presumably played in the court’s decision to force Wiseau to pay $550,000 in lost revenue (since The Room isn’t as hot now as it was a few years ago) and an additional $200,000 Canadian dollars in “punitive damages.”
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I hope this is in the movie.
Bye, Mark.
OMG, I remember the Room! My friends and I watched it ten years ago, and it was so ridiculous! And then somebody made like a low-res game out of it that I played for a few minutes at work! Wow, this takes me back. Wait, what do you mean it’s still a thing?
I get that you’re joking, but yes, it’s still a thing, and it’s never going away, just like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Midnight showings of The Room are now a part of every indie theatre’s business plan.
I know. It’s a little depressing. Rocky Horror Picture Show isn’t a great movie, but it’s silly and queer and has some catchy songs. As midnight movie traditions go, introducing teenagers to camp isn’t a bad one. The Room is silly too, in its way, but really the audience is peering down its collective nose at a bad story told badly. It’s a hollow, insular experience, since ironic detachment is the only way to engage with the movie. When I saw it as a midnight show, it was raucous without being particularly fun.
It’s not so much about the movie as it is about the shared experience. I saw Cats on the big screen, and as terrible as it was, I had a good time making fun of it with my friends and the few people who were there. You can also expect that one to become part of the midnight showing rotation. It’s fun being rowdy at the movies.
Yeah, they’re never going to stop trying to squeeze blood out of this corpse.
I blame Greg Sestero. I feel like Wiseau, alone, could never have capitalized on the growing cult hit it became. Greg may be a failed actor but he seems to have a good grasp of how to make money. I suspect his tell all about the movie was going to end in a much harsher tone but after he realized that he could make more money parading Wiseau around as his own personal freak show, he reconciled and modified the book to make him less sleazy.
Sounds like they’re tearing him apart.
Lisa?
Oh hi HappyInParaguay.
$200,000 Canadian dollarsThat’s a lot of Tim Hortons! And not very much Dunkin Donuts.
That’ll buy ya a moose of timbits — the moose being the largest unit of weight in Canadian Imperial.
Man I could eat a moosey of Timbits right now, eh?
Take’er easy there bud, a moose of timbits wouldn’t even fit in the boot of your car. Maybe bring’em to the big curling championship instead, eh?
but how much poutine?
‘bout a quarter moose.
*Tims Horton
And a lot of Canadian Bacon, or as they call in there….Bacon
So how’s his sex life?
The greatest segue in cinema history.
I finally watched the whole movie a couple years ago after years of only being familiar with it due to references from other things. The thing that struck me the most about watching the whole thing is just how mundane the dialogue is. I think it’s actually kind of impressive how the movie manages to unintentionally spin cinematic gold out of such mundane lines as “You’re my favorite customer!”
The lengthy description of the out-of-state check is kind of breathtaking in its banality. It just keeps going and even the characters within the scene seem to be zoning out.
That’s one of my favourite bits. That whole bit in the middle with Mark and Peter in the Room is fucking crazy. 90 per cent of the dialogue in the scene is irrelevant from the plot.
Also “It’s official. I definitely have breast cancer.” They moved on from that announcement real quick.
90% of the film’s plot is irrelevant to the plot.
There’s almost a realism in that. So many mainstream films rely on intense drama, they don’t seem to correspond to real life any more. “This will change your whole life!” is a staple of scripts, but in reality you’ll only ever hear it as a hyperbolic description of cheesecake.“You’re my favourite customer!” is reassuringly normal. 🙂
So he comes from Eastern Europe in the 50s, speaks several languages, no record of his identity, access to mysterious large sources of money for The Room, and is controlling and eccentric?Does anyone else think son of some oligarch/organised crime or government defector?
Clearly he’s Dr. Doom.
Only he’s brain-damaged, so it’s an honorary doctorate from Trump University.
more like dr dumb amiriteboom roasted
what does this have to do with trump? let’s leave politics out of this discussion about a bitch-ass delusional fucknugget with an obvious personality disorder and a backstory that is indistinguishable from any given cartoon villain. just because all of it is also true of mr. trump as evidenced by every single time i’ve seen him on tv, i think it’s better if we avoid politics because it’s offensive to shiftless cretins who support trump.
*backs away slowly*
bahaha
Anyone who relies soley on anti Trump MSM is brain-damaged.
Bond villain reject is my guess.
I was thinking “vampire.”
I was thinking trust fund kid. Daddy was probably one of those guys in the Nazi Propaganda movies about the invasion of Poland that was cheering when the tanks rolled in.
Pretty sure that Patton Oswalt sketch about Wiseau was premised on the fact that it’s an open secret in showbusiness that the guy was just laundering money for Eastern European crime syndicates somehow.
Do you understand life!? Do you?*Judge gets up and leaves*
He’ll have to sell a tonne of leather jackets to make that kind of money.
Where’s my money, Tommy? Where’s my FUCKING money?!
oh hai, a.v. club!
Punitive damages? You know you fucked up when Canada wants to punish you.
Canadian law takes petty disputes seriously.
A firm handshake, a two-four and a packa darts for the boys shoulda settled all this up there, eh.
If you think that is bad, The Canadian death penalty involves a moose
You’re tearing me apart, Judge Paul Schabas.
According to , a Canadian judge has ordered Tommy Wiseau—director and star of cult movie hit The Room—to pay about $700,000 to the filmmakers behind a documentary about The RoomWhat kind of money? WHAT KIND OF MONEY?
Haha, that’s a funny story, Sam.So since this is a petty case and also Canada, basically all Tommy has to do is not bother spending any time in Canada, which seems pretty easy to do.
Yeah, right, as if this dude has seven dollars.
He was an independent millionaire even before the success of the movie. So, yeah, he’s got the money.
Guy has a lot of money, unfortunately.
My joke not so good.
Am I the only one who would never want to go to one of those Rocky Horror-esque midnight screenings of this?
I am 42 years old, the idea of a midnight movie, in general, sounds like a bad idea. If I did one, I would do a classic like Rocky Horror(mostly because my wife had fond memories of doing it for several years in her early 20s) and not this crap
I wouldn’t want to either of them; I’d rather just sit and watch the movie instead of having people yell/throw things every other line.
I had a theory where he was from but then remembered Cro-Magnon wasn’t a country.
Well Cro-Magnon DNA is most prevalent in Eastern Europeans. So it tracks
So, 1,400,030 in Canadian Dollars then.
Let’s go eat, huh?
This is the like the Angelyne thing, to me. I don’t need to know their backstories! Is there no love left for enigma in the world?? They’re beautiful, unique, elegant creatures that are one of a kind – I accept them as they are, and don’t push for more than that.
You think Tommy is just going to try and buy Canada flowers?
Hi doggy
Can “The Room” and this freak stop being a thingI get that for a certain group of people of a certain age, The Room was this great comic awakening but it just feels like another bad movie. In the right state of mind with the right audience I can see it being fun to riff but I don’t think it has the lasting “Cult” following that other midnight movies have. And the fact that Wiseau has not been #MeToo’d out of the public eye yet also seems like a crime. Every thing I have seen written about him paints him as a sleezebag
Ok calm down.
You mean the guy that went after YouTubers that made videos on The Room with no legal grounds whatsoever is a sue-happy lunatic with no concept of the law? SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.
I’m still trying to figure out what rhymes with Schmoland?
Moe Land, the long abandoned Moe Szyslak theme park in Poland.
Until I read the comments I was sure it was “Holland”.
I saw Schmoland on a map in a Three Stooges episode.
This doesn’t surprise me. Chatter around The Disaster Artist was that it glossed over a lot of Wiseau’s more problematic or abusive behaviour on set to present a more positive “he’s just a weird goofball” portrait, specifically because they needed Wiseau’s consent/cooperation to get the film off the ground. Seems like he’s very dedicated to squashing any and all portrayals of his genuine character or behaviour. Hearing that he’s demanding films about himself be made “60% more positive” surprises me not at all, but really makes me disappointed (well, more disappointed) in The Disaster Artist producers, who obviously caved to these stupid demands.
Personally, I think if a biopic is made with the direct involvement of the real person being portrayed, it automatically loses all credibility (see also: Brian May’s involvement in Bohemian Rhapsody). Now I really want to see Room Full of Spoons!
The sooner the culture stops paying attention to Tommy Wiseau, the better. He accidentally made something entertaining through sheer assholery and incompetence, and he’s in on the joke now. How long does he get to coast on that goodwill?