Tommy Wiseau Spent $300,000 Keeping The Room's Infamous Billboard Up for Five Years

Tommy Wiseau spent an estimated $300,000 just to keep a single billboard for The Room standing in Los Angeles for over five years. That is the strange true story behind one of the most recognizable pieces of cult movie marketing ever made.

This matters to anyone who loves The Room's whole legend, because the billboard has become just as iconic as the film itself, a piece of Hollywood oddity that tourists still talk about long after the movie left theaters.

Paramount Turned Wiseau Down, So He Went It Alone

To distribute the film, Wiseau turned to Paramount, who obviously immediately turned him down. With no major studio backing, Wiseau promoted The Room via a single billboard in Los Angeles.

The Billboard Featured Wiseau's Own Face Mid-Blink

The billboard itself was an extreme close-up of Wiseau's own face with one eye caught mid-blink. When asked why he chose that particular image, Wiseau said it was provocative and that he looked like an evil man.

I guess he wasn't wrong about that, since most people who saw the billboard actually thought The Room was a horror film, which, in its own way, it kind of is.

Low Ticket Sales Got The Room Pulled Almost Immediately

Despite the billboard campaign, ticket sales were low and the film was almost immediately pulled from theaters. Wiseau wasn't ready to let it go that easily, though.

Wiseau Paid to Keep One Screening Alive for Oscar Eligibility

Wiseau paid to keep the film playing in one cinema for two weeks specifically so it would be eligible for the Oscars, a move that kept The Room technically in theatrical release even as audiences stayed away.

The Billboard Outlived the Film's Run by Years

As for the billboard itself, it stayed up for over five years, costing Wiseau $5,000 a month, which adds up to roughly $300,000 total. In that time, it became something of a tourist attraction in its own right, turning a marketing afterthought into one of the most enduring symbols of The Room's cult status.

Do you think Wiseau's billboard gamble was a genius piece of self promotion or just another Room-sized mistake that happened to work out?