The Room Is Finally Coming To Streaming
Don't worry about it: this won't tear you apart.
To this day, Tommy Wiseau’s The Room defies reason and reality. Often described as “the worst movie ever made,” The Room tells the story of a paranoid banker named Johnny, played by Wiseau, who descends into madness for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Featuring some of the strangest dialogue ever written, complete with unnatural line readings and bizarre tonal transitions (“Hi doggy!”), appreciation of the madness of The Room has been a subculture for a little over two decades. From late-night screenings to endlessly circulated clips online, to a docudrama created about the making of the film, The Room is, in some ways, patient zero for the kind of if-you-know-you-know irony that has come to define modern pop culture discourse.
And yet, The Room has never been available to stream on any major platform. That is, until now. Here’s what to know about the long-awaited streaming debut of The Room, plus where to watch Wiseau’s new film, Big Shark.
The Room streaming release date
Starting September 4 on Tubi, The Room will be streaming for the very first time, anywhere. For anyone who has only experienced The Room through compilation clips on YouTube, or memes, this is the moment to fully grasp every wild detail about this strange romp of a film.
Things to watch out for when you do finally see The Room:
- The number of times characters say “don’t worry about it.” (And whether anyone means it.)
- Mark’s (Greg Sestero) changing facial hair.
- Various bombshells that are dropped that don’t matter at all later.
- Johnny’s (Wiseau) unclear motivations for doing anything.
Big Shark is Wiseau’s newest film
Although the 2003 film is almost certainly the focus of this new streaming release, it turns out Wiseau has a new film out, too. And this project makes it seem like he is 100 percent in on the joke of his own strange, hyperbolic filmmaking style.
Titled Big Shark, the movie appears to feature a large shark that has leapt onto land and is wreaking havoc in the bayou, presumably somewhere on the Gulf Coast.
Whether or not sharks have the ability to leap onto land to pursue their victims is one thing; the detail about the bayou is interesting because bayous generally are brackish water, meaning that’s a mix of salt water and freshwater. So, not only is the titular Big Shark unlikely to exist at all, it’s equally strange since sharks tend to live exclusively in salt water.
Will Wiseua’s new film explain how any of this is possible? If we’re lucky, the answer will be a huge no.
Here’s hoping that Big Shark is just as funny and strange as The Room. It’s a pretty tall order, but one thing is clear: This time, if characters talk about other charaters tearing them apart, we’ll probably be mean to take that quite literally.
