10 Failed Movies That Became Cult Classics

6. The Room

Director Tommy Wiseau may refuse to admit it, but clearly his 2003 romantic drama The Room was created as an earnest attempt at a prestige-worthy movie.

Produced on an explicable budget of $6 million, the film scooped just $1800 from its initial theatrical run, with reviews railing it for Wiseau's flat direction and inconsistent performance, as well as its melodramatic and incoherent screenplay.

But this of course transpired into cult success years later as the film's infamy went viral, and Wiseau himself took advantage by hosting retrospective screenings catering to those who took a perverse joy in the movie's hilarious badness.

In the years that followed, a book was released, a video game and, of course, last year's terrific movie The Disaster Artist, which ironically scored a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination.

It's a terrific result for a movie which could've so easily faded into obscurity and been lost to time, but thanks to its uniquely charming awfulness and Wiseau's industrious promotion, The Room will endure for decades (if not longer) as "the Citizen Kane of bad movies."