James Franco’s brilliant The Disaster Artist is just over a week away from release and the director and lead actor has been out and about in the UK promoting the film. His week started with a special screening of the film at the prestigious BFI in London, and then various interviews for outlets across the country in the day that followed. Franco stopped by the Independent newspaper to talk about the film on their Kernels podcast where he revealed that he re-shot around 25 minutes worth of the film which The Disaster Artist focusses upon, The Room. He was accompanied by his brother and co-star Dave Franco.
Kernels: ‘How much of The Room did you actually remake in the end?’
J. Franco: ‘I think we might have about 20 to 25 minutes of recreated Room scenes.’
D. Franco: ‘Beat-for-beat, move-for-move, oh yeah!’
Kernels: ‘You should get that out there at some point.’
J. Franco: ‘I know! I’m sure that’ll be on the DVD, yeah.’
Related: The Disaster Artist review
The film is an absolute wondrous piece of joy. I caught it at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September. Here’s a little of what I had to say:
Franco’s film had the daytime festival audience eating out of the palm of its hand for the majority, scene after scene resulting in tons of laughter, as well as heartfelt emotion – I cannot even begin to imagine how this played at the infamous Midnight Madness. the TIFF’s famous spot for fan reaction, the previous evening. It received a standing ovation, and I actually wept on my way out, not because of the ending, but because of the whole experience of the last 100 minutes or so.
Very rarely do you get a film where you’d go right back into the theatre and watch it again immediately after the first screening and have the same emotions.
“The Disaster Artist is an eye-watering, face-aching crowd-pleaser and the funniest film of the year by quite a mile. I cannot wait to see it again and again.”
My full review can be read at the end of the link above. The film is released in UK cinemas on December 1st.
