Test audiences didn't think 'The Disaster Artist' was based on a true story

There's always a story out there you can't make up.

It certainly applies to The Disaster Artist, which is based on the true story of the ever-enigmatic Tommy Wiseau and his best-worst movie ever, The Room.

The writers behind The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, unpacked the truth behind the film in an interview with Slashfilm.

Much of the film was based off The Room actor Greg Sestero's memoir, but the writers also listened to audio recordings made by Wiseau, and watched behind-the-scenes footage from the making of The Room.

Still, test audiences who watched the film weren't so convinced the film was based on a true story, according to Neustadter.

"I think we were fascinated by the real. In this particular case – I guess in most cases – the real is way more interesting than anything we’re going to come up with. It's crazy. It’s funny, because when we were testing this movie initially with an audience of people, the one thing that they said at the end, which we couldn’t believe, was that they didn’t think any of this was true."

It seems like the pairing of Seth Rogen and James Franco in The Disaster Artist didn't help their case.

"Even though it says, ‘Based on a True Story,’ they just thought it was another Franco/Rogen [project], making something up and a funny character they were doing. The side by sides — some people still watch this movie and cannot believe, until the side-by-sides, that there is footage out there like what we shot. So that’s something that I think we, in telling the story, were cognizant of. Truth is stranger than fiction. Let’s lean in on more of what actually went down. And there are enough mysteries that go unanswered that we kept in the soufflé also."

There's also apparently enough material from Sestero's book to make a "six-hour miniseries," combined with the writers' experience of watching Franco direct in character as Wiseau, all while keeping the accent.

Even that sounds too good to be true.