A new ending for The Room?
What, the 2003 Tommy Wiseau movie?
The Room Redux
Premiere night. June 27, 2003.
The new film by Tommy Wiseau, The Room.
Edward Lozzi, standing at center stage, looked over the audience at the Fairfax movie theater.
Hundreds of affluent people, personally invited by Lozzi, were waiting for what
they all thought was going to be a good, academy award worthy film,
that people would be talking about.
Tommy Wiseau had made a film that people would compare to a Tennessee Williams story.
Anyway, that's what Tommy told everyone, and Lozzi believed him, even though he had never seen the film.
In fact, just about no one had seen the film.
Lozzi, a Beverly Hills publicity agent, had been hired by Tommy to promote the movie.
The premiere was doing things the way that Hollywood did in its heyday.
There was a floodlight out front shining high into the sky.
The cast arrived in Limos. There was a VIP check-in.
Hundreds of gift bags were handed out, containing t-shirts, audio CDs and a making-of photo book.
For those of you who are not familiar with the movie The Room, here's a quick rundown.
It has a no-name cast and it cost six-million-dollars, way more than it should have.
Tommy Wiseau financed the entire thing.
There are a lot of questions about where did he get his money, and who he even is,
but his film has been called the worst movie ever made. It was an amateur attempt at making a movie.
The story line is a love triangle. Lisa and Johnny are preparing for marriage.
But Lisa is a conniving bitch and betrays Johnny.
Johnny's best friend, Mark, also betrays him... with Lisa!
Johnny kills himself.
Lozzi introduced Tommy to the audience, and the film began.
What happened next was the beginning of a phenomenon.
It was a full house. Tommy and cast and crew were sitting in the front five rows.
Lozzi had a job to do but he watched the beginning of the film.
The opening title scenes and the music are good and everything looks professional.
But shortly later, the exit doors from the theater opened and people walked out.
And then, the doors continued opening as more and more of the audience left.
Realizing that something was wrong, Lozzi left the lobby and hurried back into the theater.
He saw amateur hour. Bad acting and bad script.
At the end of the movie, Lozzi was looking right at Tommy,
watching him. Lozzi knew there was going to be trouble.
Tommy stood up, turned around and saw a largely empty theater.
He loudly said to anyone, "Where's Lozzi?"
Lozzi heard him say those words.
There was a nice restaurant, Mimosa, right next to the theater.
Everyone had been invited to stop by after the movie, for an after-party.
There was a red carpet on the sidewalk between the theater and the restaurant.
Tommy had paid for a caterer to provide a buffet with some great food. Everything was first class.
Lozzi headed to the restaurant. He knew Tommy couldn't leave the theater until everyone else.
He was probably at that point asking anyone around him, "What the hell just happened?"
Lozzi saw some college guys at a table, laughing and eating the fine food that Tommy had paid for.
He asked them what they thought of the movie.
They replied, "It was so bad that it's good."
The gears in Lozzi's head started turning, and right there...
was the very beginning of a new direction for one of the worst films ever made.
Tommy's date for the evening was Katherine 'Kat' Kramer,
the daughter of famous director and producer Stanley Kramer. Lozzi had set them up together.
Tommy and Kat had gone out together a number of times, before the premiere.
He drove her around in his $130,000 12-cylinder Mercedes Benz.
She and her mother were Tommy's guests. They were excited when he arrived in a limo, to pick them up.
Tommy's long-time friend, Greg Sestero, who played Mark in the film, was in the limo.
He said the women both hugged and kissed Tommy. They genuinely appeared to like him.
But then, they were probably thinking they were going to see a major motion picture
that would be nominated for academy awards.
Partially cut off, in the red hat, is Katherine 'Kat' Kramer,
with her mother, Karen, and Tommy and Lozzi.
When the ladies and Tommy walked into the restaurant, there was some applause.
There were only about thirty people there. Lozzi had some photographers there.
He gave each of them $20 to make a big thing of Tommy walking into the restaurant.
The college students that Lozzi had spoken to earlier enthusiastically clapped.
Tommy briefly acknowledged them and started talking to various people.
Kat and her mother, Karen, made a beeline to Lozzi.
Karen said, "Ed, we have to talk."
They talked about trying to salvage the movie, to try to save it.
Kat probably said, "It was terrible."
Karen suggested putting a spin on it.
Lozzi said, "I have an idea."
After discussion, the three of them approached Tommy with the idea of promoting the film
as a joke on the audience, a spoof, a dark comedy.
Tommy didn't want to hear any of this. He loudly said, "Ed, you're fired!"
Kat and Karen were taken home by Tommy. I assume they tried to make Tommy feel better.
We don't know what Kat said to Tommy, privately. She knew that he was crushed.
They had dated; she took him to an AFI tribute where he met Robert De Niro and Faye Dunaway.
She told people she had fun with him.
But now, she had realized that Tommy had been deluding himself with the idea
that he had produced a great film. He had no actual talent.
She was probably looking for a way out of their relationship,
and possibly, Tommy realized it.
The next morning Lozzi's phone rang. It was Tommy.
In a soft voice he said he wanted to talk about last night.
What the hell happened? What are we going to do?
Ed Lozzi had been paid a lot of money to promote the film.
He has never told anyone of the true amount, but it was more than he had ever been paid before.
Maybe I'm crossing a line here, but Lozzi told me, "I still have some of that money."
The fact is, Lozzi owed Tommy. His client had suffered a major defeat.
Tommy must have been really down, super depressed. His entire world had been turned upside down.
Lozzi talked about the truth that Tommy needed to accept. The movie was terrible.
He said the words that needed to be said, to placate the despondent Tommy.
He also mentioned, again, that perhaps the film should be promoted as a comedy, a spoof, a joke.
But the fact is, Tommy still believed in his film...
The billboard of Tommy and the movie, at Sunset and Highland,
has been talked about a lot over the years. Yes, it was strange looking with an odd photo of Tommy's face.
It is true that it ran for five years at a cost of $5000 a month.
It became somewhat popular with tourists.
He also paid for a jumbotron on Sunset Boulevard, newspaper, and TV ads.
He would leave Room ads in restrooms! He had the city covered.
Tommy and his poster for The Room.
The movie itself ran for two weeks, to qualify for the Academy Awards. It brought in something like $1900.
Tommy honestly believed that his film would be nominated for an Oscar.
The billboard had the webpage and Lozzi's telephone number.
In the weeks to come, Lozzi received some calls from people wanting another chance to see the film.
He also received unhappy phone calls from people he had convinced to come to the movie.
Martin Landau had sat through the entire movie. One day, he saw Lozzi
and shook his head disapprovingly at him, but he was smiling.
Tommy, meanwhile, was receiving emails asking about another showing of The Room.
So, he did have that repeat showing. He paid for one-night at the prestigious Cinerama Dome.
Invited were some USC students and others who had realized that
there was something special about this off-beat film.
Tommy had a lot of guests that night. He told one of them that he
hoped this new venue would goose his chances of a Golden Globes nomination.
And yes, people laughed. The fact is, this is really not the worst film ever made.
It keeps our interest, it's fun.
Basically, a couple of film students started the ball rolling.
They told their friends that they needed to check out this film.
Meanwhile, Lozzi was lecturing at USC and UCLA about public relations and film studies.
He encouraged his students to go to Tommy's film. People were talking...
Eventually the once-a-month midnight showings of the film began.
And somewhere along the way, with patrons dressing as their favorite Room characters,
someone threw a football because they are so prevalent in the film.
And, however it actually came about, people started throwing plastic spoons,
because of some photos of spoons that decorated The Room's house.
Tommy and Edward Lozzi
Edward Lozzi took notice of this and once again, went to Tommy.
Tommy honestly believed that he had made a movie that would win academy awards. He had been crushed by its failure.
Lozzi understood Tommy lashing out at him. Lozzi told him, "Maybe we can get a win out of this thing.
Let's commercialize the heck out of this movie."
But more importantly, Lozzi urged a complete change in how the film was marketed.
Tommy must be given credit for accepting reality. He had to make the hard personal decision to look on his film as a comedy.
He told Lozzi to move forward with the new campaign.
The ad campaign now called it, a black comedy...
The film has run profitably for years at midnight showings. Merchandise in the lobby is a big business.
Plastic spoons, t-shirts, and anything related to the movie is sold. Patrons are encouraged to buy
as Tommy is happiest at the midnight showings when people buy merchandise.
Tommy eventually got his six-million dollars back.
In 2017, Dave and James Franco made their film, The Disaster Artist,
based entirely on the filming of The Room. It was a comedy.
Tommy appeared briefly at the end; he had initially refused to be in this new film because
he wanted a bigger role. But he did the right thing and made an appearance.
So what's all this about
a new ending for The Room?
While researching this article, I came up with an idea that I couldn't forget. I began to act on it.
I emailed Tommy and talked about filming a new ending to The Room.
His character in the film, Johnny, does not kill himself.
The business plan was to put together a documentary about The Room, all leading up to the new ending.
Everyone who has seen the film, and millions of people who have never even heard of it, will tune in out of curiosity.
It will be a television event. The major networks, realizing that
there will be a huge television audience, will offer millions of dollars.
Later, I wrote Juliette Daniels, who played Lisa.
And then I sent a long email to Robyn Paris, who played Michelle.
I sent her the script. I thought sure that Robyn would become interested and call Tommy.
Silence. No one responded.
I made one last try, with a third email to Tommy.
I told him it was obvious that I'm the only person in the world who thinks a new ending would be cool.
I wished him well and ended with, "If you ever find yourself looking for a new direction, here it is, right here."
A new ending... for The Room.
Edward Lozzi has been vindicated.
He had invited friends and associates to attend the premiere of a film that people would be talking about.
The Room was something special,
and all these years later... people are still talking about it.