MovieChat Forums > The Room (2003) Discussion > How did Tommy even have $6 million to sp...

How did Tommy even have $6 million to spend on this movie?


I mean, the guy is clearly a dumbass. How did he even manage to scrape together $6 million?

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[deleted]

Yeah it definitely involves something dodgy/illegal.

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I read the book The Disaster Artist and that's one mystery his friend actor Greg Sestero never figured out.

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i'd bet on either drug money or some kinda pimp action.

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He also had nice apartments in LA and SF, IIRC. Greg stayed in his LA apartment for a while early in his acting career.

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If the guys background is really such a mystery... and he is a dumbass (which sounds right to me)... Why not inherited money? I know a number of people who are thick as bricks but inherited tens of millions.
...Maybe some defective genes were involved.

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Could also be lottery winners. They tend to waste thier money quickly or get killed by the mob (seriuosly, winning a lottery increases chances of you dying 800% and chances of people around you dying 270%).

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I like those odds!

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I am quite sure that, looking carefully at my statistics, the chance of him/her dying, people around them, or anybody else on the planet, is 100%. No one here gets out alive.
What does it mean "increase by 800%"?
You mean, in the next year or something similar?
Do you have the specific data/quote?

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This is a long writeup but worth the read if you are really interested:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the_happiest_5word_sentence_you_could_hear/chb38xf/

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Cool read, thanks for the link.
I still would like to win the lottery.

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There are dozens of millionaire lottery winners every single week in most countries and to have a handful of instances where it's squandered or goes bad aince the 80's refutes the claim that it's bad.

Pretty simple to be smart about winning the lottery.

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Thats just not true. Not only are there not dozens of millionaire lottery winners every week, the post clearly cite statistics that would apply to all winners and only use a few examples to illustrate the point.
Then i guess most people are not capable at the level of "pretty simple".

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You do realise that almost every country has a national lottery, not to mention state lotteries and more often than not multiples of each right?

Each capable of producing multiple millionaires weekly. In fact dozens could even be a light estimate globally.

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You do realize that national lottery is a rare thing, right? Most countries dont encourage gambling.

Also no, national lotteries do not produce multiple millionaries weekly.

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I always assumed that when he got hit by a car, the guy who hit him owed him a lot of money.

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In Berkeley, Ken Sarachan, a homeless guy, was hit by a bus and received a massive settlement from the city, which he used to fulfill a recurring dream he'd been having. He claimed Rasputin came to him in a dream, holding up a vinyl record, repeating "do it... do it!" So he opened Rapsutin's Records; but the dreams didn't stop. Gradually they became clearer, and he realized it wasn't a record that Rasputin was holding, so he opened Blondie's Pizza, and the dreams stopped. He made a fortune from the record store and pizzeria, and bought numerous buildings and started many other businesses, yet he still looked and dressed like a fat, dirty, slob of a bum. You'd never know when you saw him walking the street that he was the richest man in Berkeley.

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Ooh I have some decent evidence he made his money in real estate, I thought it was common knowledge! It's also possible he got into that after whatever made him money initially though.

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this cost $6 mil !?!?

LOL that makes it even more epic

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About a cool million of them went to buying lights and cameras. Instead of renting as the custom is.

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yep also it was shot both on film and digitally at the same time lol

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Yes, he bought the cameras instead of renting, which is what an independent production like his would usually do.

He also started out with a professional crew, but they didn't stay for the entire production, iirc. Much of the movie actually looks like it was shot competently.

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Unless you're a film maker in Hollywood, I'll take the actual Hollywood peoples word on the matter.

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I'm just talking about the technical side of the movie. They did have a professional crew for a while.

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He's actually not a dumbass, just someone you would call a weirdo. There's probably a coherent reason for why he is the way he is, a lot of it being social isolation. While The Room is a completely ridiculous movie, if you really analyse the plot threads and the themes of the movie, they do add up to more than "dumbass". There are several homages to bigger American artworks in there which he clearly admired, on his quest to become an American.

That being said, I also read The Disaster Artist and did some reading into this question a while ago. And somehow I seem to remember that he made his first fortune with importing (counterfeit brand?) jackets from Korea to the US. It's also mentioned that he owns a lot of property and at least one warehouse, which may be related to that clothes import business.

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No it is a shit movie - but funny due to how stupid and poorly crafted it is.

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Of course it's a shit movie, he tried to go from zero to hero. Most film makers would start with short films or low budget practice projects. And with an education lol. It's poorly crafted because he had no idea what he was doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a complete dumbass personally.

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Yeah i don't think it's an indication either way.

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If you got into real estate at the right time in California, you could have made a fortune. There's a SF/fantasy writer named Robert Silverberg who actually became a rich man buying real estate.

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