What Is Tommy Wiseau's Net Worth?
Tommy Wiseau is an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer who has a net worth of $4 million. Tommy Wiseau is best known for his 2003 cult classic film "The Room." His movie is often ranked as one of the worst movies of all time. The making of the film was the basis of the 2017 James Franco film "The Disaster Artist."
Early Life
Tommy Wiseau's personal life and background are notoriously mysterious. He may have been born in the US, Poland, or France. Nobody, not even those close to him, actually knows. He allegedly spent most of his formative years in New Orleans, Louisiana, but has traveled back and forth between Louisiana and France for most of his life. His birthday is generally believed to be October 3, 1955, although, in a 2010 interview with "Crikey," he gave an age that would indicate he may have actually been born in 1968 or 1969. His close friend and co-star in "The Room" Greg Sestero, in his 2013 memoir "The Disaster Artist," said that his brother's girlfriend obtained copies of Wiseau's immigration papers and found that Tommy was much older than he claimed.
Wiseau seemed to confirm publicly for the first time in 2017 that he is originally from Europe, saying: "Long story short, I grew up in Europe a long time ago, but I'm American and very proud of it." Sestero tells a story in the book that Wiseau claimed to be wrongfully arrested at a hostel during a drug raid and was reportedly traumatized by his treatment by the French police, which led to his immigration to the U.S. Tommy claims to have earned a degree in psychology from Laney Community College in Oakland. He worked for some time at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, selling toys to tourists, gaining the nickname "The Birdman," which prompted him to legally change his name to Thomas Pierre Wiseau, with the French word for bird being "oiseau" and replaced the O with the W.
Early Career
Tommy worked a variety of jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, including as a hospital aide and a busboy at a local restaurant. Wiseau claims to have been involved in a near-deadly crash after a driver ran a red light and struck the vehicle he was driving, resulting in him being hospitalized for several weeks. Greg Sestero suggests that this was the turning point in Wiseau's life, in which he realized he wanted to fulfill his dreams of becoming an actor and a director. Tommy is said to have been influenced heavily by actors Marlon Brando and James Dean, as well as the films "Citizen Kane" and "The Guns of Navarone."
Wiseau had tried to burst into the Hollywood scene since the late '80s, taking acting classes with Vincent Chase and attending film classes at Los Angeles Community College. He directed a student film called "Robbery Doesn't Pay," shooting with a Super 8 camera in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
"The Room"
Tommy is most widely recognized for his 2003 film "The Room," which was a massive critical failure but has become a cult favorite due to its unintentional hilarity. It had a budget of $6 million, and the financing of the film has long been a mystery. Wiseau based the film on an unpublished 540-page novel that he wrote himself. The film was a massive critical failure but subsequently became a social phenomenon. Multiple groups have scheduled late-night showings of the movie involving costumes and interactive dialogue around the world. Several lines of dialogue used in "The Room," like the infamous "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!" were based on lines from the film "Rebel Without a Cause."
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Other Work
Since then, Tommy has appeared on "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" and has released another film entitled "The House That Drips Blood on Alex." In 2004, he produced and appeared in a short film called "Homeless in America." Wiseau was featured as Linton Kitano in "Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance." In 2011, he starred in his own web series called "Tommy Explains It All." In 2016, it was announced that Wiseau and Sestero were to star in a movie called "Best F(r)iends." It was written by Sestero and secretly shot around Los Angeles. It premiered on September 5, 2017, at the Prince Charles Cinema in London.
Tommy also wrote, directed, and starred in the pilot for "The Neighbors." The project was not picked up by any networks, however, the first four episodes were released on Hulu on March 14, 2015, with an additional two episodes released two months later.
"The Disaster Artist"
In 2014, Seth Rogen's production company announced that it had acquired the rights to a script called "The Disaster Artist," which is based on a book of the same name and was written by Tommy's "Room" co-star Greg Sestero. Production on the film, which stars James Franco as Tommy, began in December 2015 and ended in January 2016. The film was met with extremely positive critical response and was released in December 2017 theater release. At South by Southwest, the film received a standing ovation. As of this writing, the movie has a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie generated $30 million at the box office. Before a screening of "The Room" at the Prince Charles Cinema in February 2019, Wiseau released a teaser trailer for an upcoming horror movie "Big Shark," his second directorial effort. It was set to have its premiere in September 2019 at the Prince Charles Cinema; however, it was delayed indefinitely.
(Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
Real Estate
If "The Disaster Artist" is to be believed, Tommy owns apartments in Hollywood and San Francisco. The main real estate we were able to find in public records is a 15,000-square-foot commercial building at 555 Beach Street in San Francisco. The building is owned by the "Thomas P Wiseau Revocable Tr." It is worth an estimated $2-4 million, depending on market rates.
Documentary Lawsuit
In May 2020, Tommy was ordered to pay two Canadian documentary makers $700,000 in damages. The filmmakers had hoped to release an unauthorized documentary about Wiseau titled "Room Full of Spoons" in 2017, around the time "Disaster Artist" was released. Tommy obtained an injunction that prevented them from releasing the doc on copyright violation allegations.
