According to Greg Sestero, Tommy Wiseau submitted the film to Paramount Pictures, hoping to get them on board as distributor. Usually, it takes about two weeks to get a reply from such a studio. This movie, however, was rejected within 24 hours.
Towards the end of the Los Angeles portion of the shoot, morale among the crew was so low that Todd Barron's name was not listed on the clapperboard, take numbers were not being recorded, giggling crew members wandered in and out of shots, and entire scenes were out of focus simply because nobody bothered to check the lens.
After low ticket sales, the film was almost immediately pulled from cinemas. Tommy Wiseau paid to keep the film playing in one cinema for two weeks so it would be eligible for Oscar nominations. This proved to be a fruitless attempt, as the film didn't receive any nominations. Ironically, The Disaster Artist (2017), the film based on Greg Sestero's book, received one Oscar nomination for "Best Adapted Screenplay".
Shot simultaneously on 35 mm film and high-definition video. Tommy Wiseau was confused about the differences between the two formats, but he decided use both of them, as he wanted to be the first director to shoot on film and HD simultaneously. In order to do that, he had a custom mount constructed to house both cameras, unaware that he would need a different crew and lighting setup for each. He also purchased the cameras instead of renting them as film productions usually do, with the cost of the HD camera alone being $100,000. Despite this, only the footage shot with the 35 mm film camera was eventually used.
The woman in the flower shop was not an actress but the woman who actually worked there. According to Greg Sestero, Tommy Wiseau, upon seeing the dog, asked if it was "the real thing". Tommy wanted to know if it was a real, living, actual dog.