SAN JOSE, Calif. — Greg Sestero can’t get away from making bad movies, he’s actually proud to say. He’s talking about movies that boast outrageous story lines, insane characters and such a miraculous embrace of schlock, exploitation and humor that they are truly fun to watch.
The Alamo-reared actor, writer and first-time director became a figure in Hollywood lore for starring in “The Room,” the famously 2003 so-bad-it’s-good cult classic. Sestero gained more cinephile cred when “The Disaster Artist,” his 2013 New York Times best-selling book about the making of “The Room” — “the greatest bad movie ever made” — was transformed into a critically acclaimed 2017 film by the same name.
Audiences were charmed by the story Sestero told about his unlikely friendship with Tommy Wiseau, “The Room’s” eccentric writer-director-star, and the joys of being creatively audacious.
Sestero now makes his debut as director with the equally audacious “Miracle Valley,” which he also wrote and stars in. The film becomes available for free Friday on the Tubi streaming service and is expected to screen in theaters around Halloween.
Sestero’s new project isn’t likely to return him to the proximity of Oscars conversations. For one thing, “Miracle Valley” is a horror film, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences usually doesn’t reward horror. But Sestero also acknowledges that he’s not trying to go the prestige indie route with “Miracle Valley.”
“Twenty years ago, I survived making ‘The Room,’ the best worst movie ever made,” Sestero told Deadline. “Hopefully, ‘Miracle Valley’ ends up as the second best worst movie ever made.”
Indeed, “Miracle Valley” carries the allure of pure exploitation film, with its plot involving “a cult in the Arizona desert” that is said to be “inspired by a true story.”
In an interview with this news organization, Sestoro explained why he likes to make “best-worse” kinds of movies.
“I like to make movies that play well with the crowd, that have a mix of horror, and comedy and a mix of risk,” he said. “I think it’s really important to take a risk for yourself and for the crowd, to give them something they haven’t seen before.”
It’s likely there are elements of “Miracle Valley” that audiences haven’t seen before. According to its logline, the film centers on “an obsessive photographer and his girlfriend, who are invited to a desert oasis in search of an ultra-rare bird. Plans to capitalize on the discovery while repairing their fading relationship take a turn when an unexpected and sinister presence forces them to face demons from both their past, present, and future.”
Sestero also acknowledges that he hasn’t been as visible as he was during the publicity blitz for the movie “The Disaster Artist.” For the film’s powerful 2017-18 run for awards season glory, director and star James Franco became the face of the production. Franco, who played Wiseau in the movie, triumphantly won a Golden Globe award for best actor in a comedy.
But the film’s momentum immediately crashed into the tidal wave of #MeToo awareness. Days after his Golden Globes win, the Palo Alto-born actor was hit with accusations from five women in a Los Angeles Times report, alleging sexually inappropriate behavior had taken place at an acting school he ran in Los Angeles. Franco eventually settled a suit with two of those women, whose accusations included a variety of improprieties related to the school’s handling of sexually explicit work.
In a possible reaction to the sexual misconduct allegations, Franco received no Oscar nominations for either acting or directing. However, “The Disaster Artist’s” screenwriters, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, received a nomination for adapting Sestero’s book, which he co-authored with Tom Bissell.
Nonetheless, much of the conversation about “The Disaster Artist” died with the Franco controversy. Sestero can’t say to what extent “The Disaster Artist’s” misfortune affected the trajectory of his career. He said he’s proud of the film and said it was embraced by people around the world. Indeed, it turned in a profit, earning close to $30 million in worldwide box office on a $10 million production budget.
“It would have been great if it had received more nominations. Maybe more people could have experienced it,” Sestero said.
But Sestero said working behind the scenes on the film, which featured other top-list Hollywood talent like Seth Rogen, Dave Franco, Alison Brie and Jacki Weaver, was very “educational.” He even likens it to therapy. “It’s some really expensive therapy, getting to be on set where people were being creative,” he said.
The Franco issues also didn’t slow down Sestero’s career. Amid the COVID pandemic, he appeared in the 2020 Netflix mini-series, “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” starred in a couple of other low-budget horror films and has continued to work with Wiseau, most recently filming a movie called, Big Shark,” about three firefighters who “must save New Orleans from a shark attack.”
Sestero also said he wants to do a movie about UFOs, inspired by his time in Arizona working on “Miracle Valley.” He added that audiences still love “The Room,” which continues to play at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco on the first Saturday of every month. For that reason, Sestero said fans should expect some more spin-offs from his book, “The Disaster Artist.”
“At the end of the day, I still get to make the films I’ve wanted to make,” Sestero said.
