James Franco's new movie The Disaster Artist is based on a notoriously so-bad-it's-popular movie The Room. While The Room never earned any critical accolades, The Disaster Artist looks as if it won't be following the same trajectory, as it's already earning awards. This weekend, the flick did really well at the 65th annual San Sebastian Film Festival, earning the festival's Golden Shell award.
The Golden Shell was introduced way back in 1957 at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and in the years since has been given to a lot of movies you've probably never heard of and some you probably have. Although it's no Academy Award in terms of prestige in the industry, it's still interesting to point out the win, as The Disaster Artist is the first time a United States movie has nabbed the award since 2007's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. It also means The Disaster Artist is continuing to get more buzz after its premiere at South By Southwest earlier this past spring, where the flick reportedly earned a standing ovation.
The Disaster Artist stars James Franco as Tommy Wiseau, the notorious star of The Room, a movie which is still played in cult showings around the world. A 2013 memoir was written by the flick's other star Greg Sestero about the making of the 2003 cult film and that's what was used as the basis for The Disaster Artist, which was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and will star Franco, his brother Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson and more.
Buzz for the movie after its festival showings has been good. The Disaster Artist is currently scoring a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and a solid but not quite as high 77% on Metacritic. More importantly, possibly, it's the type of movie the Academy tends to like. It's a movie about making a movie--even in this case if it's about making a gigantic disaster of a movie. It's still a love letter of sorts to Hollywood and it has some pretty heavy hitters involved. We'll see if The Disaster Artist still manages to have traction by the time awards season rolls around. But early praise is never a bad place to start.
The Disaster Artist will be released early starting on December 1, and is being given a wide release starting on December 8. If you'd like to see why Dave Franco got involved in a movie with his brother, we have you covered. If you're definitely not interested in the movie about the making of The Room, don't fret; there's plenty of bigger box office stuff still set to hit theaters before the end of the year. Check them out with our full schedule.
