Before yesterday, it was probably safe to assume that no one ever paired Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk and the notorious ‘so bad, it’s good’ movie The Room in the same thought. That’s no longer the case, as it’s been revealed that Odenkirk is starring in a remake of The Room that’s being put together for a good cause. Odenkirk has now opened up about his experience working on the project, which includes clarifying that he’s “not mocking” the Tommy Wiseau-helmed movie.
Fresh off confirming his involvement in The Room remake on social media, Bob Odenkirk opened up about his time playing Johnny, Tommy Wiseau’s character from the 2003 flick, which was also written, directed and produced by Wiseau. In terms of Odenkirk putting his own spin on the role, the actor said this to EW:
I'm not mocking Tommy's performance or even mocking the script. I'm going, 'This is your script. Bob Odenkirk, this is your part. How are you going to make it real and make it feel legit?'
This remake of The Room was put together with the involvement of Acting For a Cause to benefit amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and it was largely shot on green screen. Bob Odenkirk believes that backdrops from the original 2003 movie will be inserted into this new take, and one of the reasons he agreed to play Johnny in the remake because he wanted to see if he could deliver a truly dramatic take of the material without altering the lines in any way. As he put it:
I don't change the lines, but I do them my own way, in a way that hopefully feels legit and real. And I think I pulled it off some, and then there are scenes that I just couldn't. You just can't make them legitimate. I mean, they're insane. The things that people are saying are so insane!
Bob Odenkirk is joined in The Room remake by Brando Crawford (who’s also directing), Justin Decloux, Cameron Kasky, Jarad Schwartz, Bella Heathcote, Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan and Flanagan’s wife Kate Siegel. There’s no word yet on when the project will be released and on what platform, but whenever the public gets to see it, Odenkirk is hopeful that people walk away from this new version of The Room thinking, “Wow, okay! That's a real movie, I'd watch that!”
Despite being poorly received upon its initial release, it didn’t take long for The Room to develop a cult following. Greg Sestero, who co-starred The Room as Johnny’s best friend Mark, wrote a memoir about his experience working on the movie called The Disaster Artist. That book was adapted into the critically-acclaimed, same-named 2017 movie directed by and starring James Franco as Tommy Wiseau, and his brother Dave Franco played Sestero.
As for Bob Odenkirk, he can next be seen starring in the AMC series Lucky Hank, which premieres Sunday, March 19. Odenkirk has also expressed interest in returning to the action genre for Nobody 2, but as things currently stand, the sequel hasn’t progressed past the development stage.
