Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996
novel of the same nameFight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups...
by
Chuck PalahniukCharles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...
. The film was directed by
David FincherDavid Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
and stars
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
,
Brad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
and
Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "
everymanIn literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
" who is discontented with his
white-collar jobThe term white-collar worker refers to a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work, in contrast with a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor...
. He forms a "fight club" with soap maker Tyler Durden, played by Pitt, and becomes embroiled in a relationship with him and a dissolute woman, Marla Singer, played by Bonham Carter.
Palahniuk's novel was optioned by
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
producer
Laura ZiskinLaura Ellen Ziskin was an American film producer. In 1990, Ziskin was the sole executive producer of the hit comedy Pretty Woman...
, who hired
Jim UhlsJim Uhls born as James Walter Uhls is an American screenwriter and producer who rose to fame with his script adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel Fight Club...
to write the film adaptation. Fincher was one of four directors the producers considered and hired him because of his enthusiasm for the film. Fincher developed the script with Uhls and sought screenwriting advice from the cast and others in the film industry. The director and the cast compared the film to
Rebel Without a CauseRebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
(1955) and
The GraduateThe Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
(1967). Fincher intended
Fight Clubs violence to serve as a metaphor for the conflict between a generation of young people and the
value systemA value system is a set of consistent ethic values and measures used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity. A well defined value system is a moral code.-Personal and communal:...
of advertising. The director copied the
homoeroticHomoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
overtones from Palahniuk's novel to make audiences uncomfortable and keep them from anticipating the twist ending.
Studio executives did not like the film and they restructured Fincher's intended marketing campaign to try to reduce anticipated losses.
Fight Club failed to meet the studio's expectations at the box office and received polarized reactions from critics. It was cited as one of the most controversial and talked-about films of 1999. However, the film later found commercial success with its DVD release, which established
Fight Club as a
cult filmA cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. Critical reception of
Fight Club has since become more positive.
Plot
The nameless narrator (Norton) is a traveling automobile company employee who suffers from
insomniaInsomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
. His doctor refuses to give him medication and advises him to visit a
support groupIn a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic...
to witness more severe suffering. The narrator attends a support group for
testicular cancerTesticular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...
victims and, after fooling them into thinking that he is a fellow victim, finds an emotional release that relieves his insomnia. He becomes addicted to attending support groups and pretending to be a victim, but the presence of another impostor, Marla Singer (Bonham Carter), disturbs him, so he negotiates with her to avoid their meeting at the same groups.
After a flight home from a business trip, the narrator finds his apartment destroyed by an explosion. He calls Tyler Durden (Pitt), a soap salesman whom he befriended on the flight, and they meet at a bar. A conversation about
consumerismConsumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
leads to Tyler inviting the narrator to stay at his place; outside the bar he requests that the narrator hit him. The two engage in a fistfight, and the narrator subsequently moves into Tyler's dilapidated house. They have further fights outside the bar, and these attract a crowd of men. The fighting moves to the bar's basement where the men form a "fight club".
Marla overdoses on pills and telephones the narrator for help; he ignores her, but Tyler answers the call and saves her. Tyler and Marla become sexually involved, and Tyler warns the narrator never to talk to Marla about him. More fight clubs form across the country, and under Tyler's leadership, they become the anti-materialist and anti-corporate organization called "Project Mayhem". The narrator complains to Tyler that he wants to be more involved in the organization, but Tyler suddenly disappears. When a member of Project Mayhem is killed by the police during a botched sabotage operation, the narrator tries to shut down the project, and follows evidence of Tyler's national travels to track him down. In one city, a Project member greets the narrator as Tyler Durden. The narrator calls Marla from his hotel room and discovers that Marla also believes him to be Tyler. He suddenly sees Tyler in his room, and Tyler explains that they are
dissociated personalitiesDissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
in the same body. Tyler controls the narrator's body when the narrator is asleep.
The narrator blacks out after the conversation. When he wakes, he discovers from his telephone log that Tyler made calls during his blackout. He uncovers Tyler's plans to erase debt by destroying buildings that contain credit card companies' records. The narrator tries to contact the police but finds that the officers are members of the Project. He attempts to disarm explosives in a building, but Tyler subdues him and moves to a safe building to watch the destruction. The narrator, held by Tyler at gunpoint, realizes that in sharing the same body with Tyler, he himself is actually holding the gun. He fires it into his mouth, shooting through the cheek without killing himself. Tyler collapses with an exit wound to the back of his head, and the narrator stops mentally projecting him. Afterward, Project Mayhem members bring a kidnapped Marla to him, believing him to be Tyler, and leave them alone. The explosives detonate, collapsing the buildings, and the narrator and Marla watch the scene, holding hands.
Themes
Fincher said
Fight Club was a
coming of ageComing of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
film, like the 1967 film
The GraduateThe Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
but for people in their 30s. Fincher described the narrator as an "
everymanIn literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
"; the character is identified in the script as "Jack", but left nameless in the film. Fincher outlined the narrator's background: "He's tried to do everything he was taught to do, tried to fit into the world by becoming the thing he isn't." The narrator cannot find happiness, so he travels on a path to enlightenment in which he must "kill" his parents, his god, and his teacher. At the start of the film, he has killed his parents. With Tyler Durden, he kills his god by doing things they are not supposed to do. To complete the process of maturing, the narrator has to kill his teacher, Tyler Durden.
The character is a 1990s inverse of
The Graduate archetype: "a guy who does
not have a world of possibilities in front of him, he has
no possibilities, he literally cannot imagine a way to change his life". He is confused and enraged, so he responds to his environment by creating Tyler Durden, a
NietzscheanFriedrich Nietzsche developed his philosophy during the late 19th century amid growing criticism of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophic system.Nietzsche owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and admitted that Schopenhauer was...
ÜbermenschThe Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
, in his mind. While Tyler is who the narrator would want to be, he is not empathetic and does not help the narrator face decisions in his life "that are complicated and have moral and ethical implications". Fincher explained, "[Tyler] can deal with the concepts of our lives in an idealistic fashion, but it doesn't have anything to do with the compromises of real life as modern man knows it. Which is: You're not really necessary to a lot of what's going on. It's built, it just needs to run now." While studio executives worried that
Fight Club was going to be "sinister and seditious", Fincher sought to make it "funny and seditious" by including humor to temper the sinister element.
Uhls described the film as a "romantic comedy", explaining, "It has to do with the characters' attitudes toward a healthy relationship, which is a lot of behavior which
seems unhealthy and harsh to each other, but in fact does work for them—because both characters are out on the edge psychologically." The narrator seeks intimacy, but he avoids it with Marla Singer, seeing too much of himself in her. While Marla is a seductive and negativist prospect for the narrator, he instead embraces the novelty and excitement that comes with befriending Tyler Durden. The narrator is comfortable being personally connected to Tyler Durden, but he becomes jealous when Tyler becomes sexually involved with Marla. When the narrator argues with Tyler about their friendship, Tyler tells him that being friends is secondary to pursuing the philosophy they have been exploring. Tyler also suggests doing something about Marla, implying that she is a risk to be removed. When Tyler says this, the narrator realizes that his desires should have been focused on Marla and begins to diverge from Tyler's path.
The
unreliable narratorAn unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...
is not immediately aware that Tyler Durden originated in him and is being mentally projected. He also mistakenly promotes the fight clubs as a way to feel powerful, though the narrator's physical condition worsens while Tyler Durden's appearance improves. While Tyler desires "real experiences" of actual fights like the narrator at first, he manifests a
nihilisticNihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
attitude of rejecting and destroying institutions and value systems. His impulsive nature, representing the
idId, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described...
, conveys an attitude that is seductive and liberating to the narrator and the members of Project Mayhem. Tyler's initiatives and methods become dehumanizing; he orders around the members of Project Mayhem with a megaphone similar to camp directors at Chinese re-education camps. The narrator pulls back from Tyler and in the end, he arrives at a middle ground between his two conflicting selves.
Edward Norton said, "I feel that
Fight Club really, in a way ... probed into the despair and paralysis that people feel in the face of having inherited this value system out of advertising." Brad Pitt said, "
Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to push through the walls we put around ourselves and just go for it, so for the first time we can experience the pain."
Fight Club also parallels the 1955 film
Rebel Without a CauseRebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
; both probe the frustrations of the people that live in the system. The characters, having undergone societal
emasculationEmasculation is the removal of the genitalia of a male, notably the penis and/or the testicles.By extension, the word has also come to mean to render a male less of a man, or to make a male feel less of a man by humiliation. This metaphorical usage of the word is much more common than the...
, are reduced to "a generation of spectators". A culture of advertising defines society's "external signifiers of happiness", causing an unnecessary chase for material goods that replaces the more essential pursuit of spiritual happiness. The film references
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
,
IKEAIKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...
, and the
Volkswagen New Beetle-Specifications:*Dimension:**Length: **Width: **Height: **Wheelbase: **Curb weight: *Max speed: 177–210 km/h *Acceleration : 6.5-13.2 sec-Body styles:-Engine choices:-Safety:...
. Norton said of the Beetle, "We smash it ... because it seemed like the classic example of a Baby Boomer generation marketing plan that sold culture back to us." His character also walks through his apartment while visual effects identify his many IKEA possessions. Fincher described the narrator's immersion, "It was just the idea of living in this fraudulent idea of happiness." Pitt explained the dissonance, "I think there's a self-defense mechanism that keeps my generation from having any real honest connection or commitment with our true feelings. We're rooting for ball teams, but we're not getting in there to play. We're so concerned with failure and success—like these two things are all that's going to sum you up at the end."
The violence of the fight clubs serves not to promote or glorify physical combat, but for participants to experience
feelingFeeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of...
in a society where they are otherwise numb. The fights tangibly represent a resistance to the impulse to be "cocooned" in society. Norton believed that the fighting between the men strips away the "fear of pain" and "the reliance on material signifiers of their self-worth", leaving them to experience something valuable. When the fights evolve into revolutionary violence, the film only half-accepts the revolutionary
dialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
by Tyler Durden; the narrator pulls back and rejects Durden's ideas.
Fight Club purposely shapes an ambiguous message, the interpretation of which is left to the audience. Fincher elaborated, "I love this idea that you can have
fascismFascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
without offering any direction or solution. Isn't the point of fascism to say, 'This is the way we should be going'? But this movie couldn't be further from offering
any kind of solution."
Development
The novel
Fight ClubFight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups...
by
Chuck PalahniukCharles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...
was published in 1996. Before its publication, a
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
book scout sent a
galley proofIn printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronic...
of the novel to creative executive Kevin McCormick. The executive tasked a studio reader to review the proof as a candidate for a film adaptation, but the reader discouraged it. McCormick then forwarded the proof to producers
Lawrence BenderLawrence Bender is an American film producer. He rose to fame by producing Reservoir Dogs in 1992 and has since produced all of Quentin Tarantino's films with the exception of Death Proof....
and
Art LinsonArt Linson is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.He was born in Chicago, Illinois. His directorial debut was the 1980 comedy, Where the Buffalo Roam, which was loosely based on stories by Hunter S. Thompson and starred Bill Murray as the writer...
, who also rejected it. Producers Josh Donen and Ross Bell saw potential and expressed interest. They arranged unpaid screen readings with actors to determine the script's length, and an initial reading lasted six hours. The producers cut out sections to reduce the running time, and they used the shorter script to record its dialogue. Bell sent the recording to
Laura ZiskinLaura Ellen Ziskin was an American film producer. In 1990, Ziskin was the sole executive producer of the hit comedy Pretty Woman...
, head of the division Fox 2000, who listened to the tape and purchased the rights to
Fight Club from Palahniuk for $10,000.
Ziskin initially considered hiring
Buck HenryHenry Zuckerman, better known as Buck Henry , is an American actor, writer, film director, and television director.-Early life:...
to write the adaptation, finding
Fight Club similar to the 1967 film
The GraduateThe Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
, which Henry had adapted. When a new screenwriter, Jim Uhls, lobbied Donen and Bell for the job, the producers chose him over Henry. Bell contacted four directors to direct the film. He considered
Peter JacksonSir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
the best choice, but Jackson was too busy filming the 1996 film
The FrightenersThe Frighteners is a 1996 comedy horror film directed by Peter Jackson and co-written with his wife, Fran Walsh. The film's cast includes Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, John Astin, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace, Jake Busey and Chi McBride...
in New Zealand.
Bryan SingerBryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
received the book but did not read it.
Danny BoyleDaniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
met with Bell and read the book, but he pursued another film.
David FincherDavid Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
, who had read
Fight Club and tried to buy the rights himself, talked with Ziskin about directing the film. He hesitated to accept the assignment with 20th Century Fox at first because he had an unpleasant experience directing the 1992 film
Alien 3 for the studio. To repair his relationship with the studio, he met with Ziskin and studio head Bill Mechanic. In August 1997, 20th Century Fox announced that Fincher would direct the film adaptation of
Fight Club.
Casting
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Producer Ross Bell met with actor
Russell CroweRussell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
to discuss his candidacy for the role of Tyler Durden. Producer Art Linson, who joined the project late, met with another candidate, Brad Pitt. Linson was the senior producer of the two, so the studio sought to cast Pitt instead of Crowe. Pitt was looking for a new film after the failure of his 1998 film
Meet Joe BlackMeet Joe Black is a 1998 American fantasy romance film produced by Universal Studios, directed by Martin Brest and starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Claire Forlani, loosely based on the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday...
, and the studio believed
Fight Club would be more commercially successful with a major star. The studio signed Pitt and offered him a $17.5 million salary.
For the role of the nameless narrator, the studio desired a "sexier marquee name" like
Matt DamonMatthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
to increase the film's commercial prospects; it also considered
Sean PennSean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
. Fincher instead considered Edward Norton a candidate for the role, based on the actor's performance in the 1996 film
The People vs. Larry FlyntThe People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by...
. Other studios were approaching Norton for leading roles in developing films like
The Talented Mr. RipleyThe Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. It is an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed as Plein Soleil .The film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth...
and
Man on the Moon. The actor was cast in
Runaway JuryRunaway Jury is a 2003 American drama/thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz...
, but the film did not reach production. 20th Century Fox offered Norton a $2.5 million salary to attract him to
Fight Club. Norton could not accept the offer immediately since he still owed
Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
a film. He signed a contractual obligation with Paramount to appear in one of the studio's future films for a smaller salary (Norton satisfied the obligation with his role in the 2003 film
The Italian JobThe Italian Job is a 2003 heist film directed by F. Gary Gray. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, Jason Statham, Mos Def, and Donald Sutherland. It is an American remake of a 1969 British film of the same name, and is about a team of thieves who plan to steal...
).
In January 1998, 20th Century Fox announced that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were cast in the film. The actors prepared for their roles by taking lessons in
boxingBoxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
,
taekwondoTaekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...
,
grapplingGrappling refers to techniques, maneuvers, and counters applied to an opponent in order to gain a physical advantage, such as improving relative position, escaping, submitting, or injury to the opponent. Grappling is a general term that covers techniques used in many disciplines, styles and martial...
, and soapmaking. Pitt voluntarily visited a dentist to have pieces of his front teeth chipped off so his character would not have perfect teeth. The pieces were restored after filming concluded.
Fincher's first choice for the role of Marla Singer was
Janeane GarofaloJaneane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...
, who objected to the film's sexual content. The filmmakers considered
Courtney LoveCourtney Michelle Love is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs...
and
Winona RyderWinona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
as candidates early on. The studio wanted to cast
Reese WitherspoonLaura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon , better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer. Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the film The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower...
, but Fincher objected that Witherspoon was too young for the role. He chose to cast Helena Bonham Carter based on her performance in the 1997 film
The Wings of the Dove.
Writing
Screenwriter Jim Uhls started working on an early draft of the adapted screenplay, which excluded a
voice-overVoice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
because the industry perceived at the time that the technique was "hackneyed and trite". When Fincher joined the film, he thought that the film should have a voice-over, believing that the film's humor came from the narrator's voice. The director described the film without a voice-over as seemingly "sad and pathetic". Fincher and Uhls revised the script for six to seven months and by 1997 had a third draft that reordered the story and left out several major elements. When Pitt was cast, he was concerned that his character, Tyler Durden, was too one-dimensional. Fincher sought the advice of writer-director
Cameron CroweCameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
, who suggested giving the character more ambiguity. Fincher also hired screenwriter
Andrew Kevin WalkerAndrew Kevin Walker is an American BAFTA-nominated screenwriter. He is known for having written the Academy Award-nominated film Seven , for which he earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as several other films, including 8mm , Sleepy Hollow and many...
for assistance. The director invited Pitt and Norton to help revise the script, and the group drafted five revisions in the course of a year.
Chuck Palahniuk praised the faithful film adaptation of his novel and applauded how the film's plot was more streamlined than the book's. Palahniuk recalled how the writers debated if film audiences would believe the plot twist from the novel. Fincher supported including the twist, arguing, "If they accept everything up to this point, they'll accept the plot twist. If they're still in the theater, they'll stay with it." Palahniuk's novel also contained
homoeroticHomoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
overtones, which the director included in the film to make audiences uncomfortable and accentuate the surprise of the film's twists. The bathroom scene where Tyler Durden bathes next to the narrator is an example of the overtones; the line, "I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need," was meant to suggest personal responsibility rather than homosexuality. Another example is the scene at the beginning of the film in which Tyler Durden puts a gun barrel down the narrator's mouth.
The narrator finds redemption at the end of the film by rejecting Tyler Durden's dialectic, a path that diverged from the novel's ending in which the narrator is placed in a mental institution. Norton drew parallels between redemption in the film and redemption in
The Graduate, indicating that the protagonists of both films find a middle ground between two divisions of self. Fincher considered the novel too infatuated with Tyler Durden and changed the ending to move away from him: "I wanted people to love Tyler, but I also wanted them to be OK with his vanquishing."
Filming
Studio executives Mechanic and Ziskin planned an initial budget of $23 million to finance the film, but by the start of production, the budget was increased to $50 million. Half was paid by New Regency, but during filming, the projected budget escalated to $67 million. New Regency's head and
Fight Club executive producer
Arnon MilchanArnon Milchan is a film producer, Israeli intelligence agent, and arms dealer. Milchan produced many films such as The War of the Roses, Once Upon a Time in America, Pretty Woman, Natural Born Killers, Under Siege, The Devil's Advocate, The Fountain, Unfaithful, L.A. Confidential and many others...
petitioned Fincher to reduce costs by at least $5 million. The director refused, so Milchan threatened Mechanic that New Regency would withdraw financing. Mechanic sought to restore Milchan's support by sending him tapes of
dailiesDailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
from
Fight Club. After seeing three weeks of filming, Milchan reinstated New Regency's financial backing. The final production budget was $63 million.
The fight scenes were heavily choreographed, but the actors were required to "go full out" to capture realistic effects like having the wind knocked out of them. Makeup artist Julie Pearce, who worked for the director on the 1997 film
The GameThe Game is a 1997 neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by David Fincher, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, and produced by Polygram. It tells the story of an investment banker who is given a mysterious gift: participation in a game that integrates in strange ways with his life...
, studied
mixed martial artsMixed Martial Arts is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, including boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, judo and other styles. The roots of modern mixed martial arts can be...
and
pay-per-viewPay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
boxing to portray the fighters accurately. She designed an extra's ear to have cartilage missing, citing as inspiration the boxing match in which
Mike TysonMichael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
bit off part of
Evander HolyfieldEvander Holyfield is a professional boxer from the United States. He is a former undisputed world champion in both the cruiserweight and heavyweight divisions, earning him the nickname "The Real Deal"...
's ear. Makeup artists devised two methods to create sweat on cue: spraying mineral water over a coat of
VaselineVaseline is a brand of petroleum jelly based products owned by Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. Products include plain petroleum jelly and a selection of skin creams, soaps, lotions, cleansers, deodorants and personal lubricants....
, and using the unadulterated water for "wet sweat".
Meat LoafMichael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...
, who plays a member of the fight club who has "
bitch titsGynecomastia or Gynaecomastia, , is the abnormal development of large mammary glands in males resulting in breast enlargement. The term comes from the Greek γυνή gyné meaning "woman" and μαστός mastós meaning "breast"...
", wore a 90-pound (40 kg) fat harness that gave him large breasts for the role. He also wore eight-inch (20 cm) lifts in his scenes with Norton to be taller than him.
The filming lasted 138 days, during which Fincher shot more than 1,500 rolls of film, three times the average for a Hollywood film. The locations were in and around
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and on sets built at the studio in Century City. Production designer Alex McDowell constructed more than 70 sets. The exterior of Tyler Durden's house was built in San Pedro, California, while the interior was built on a sound stage at the studio's location. The interior was given a decayed look to illustrate the deconstructed world of the characters. Marla Singer's apartment was based on photographs of the Rosalind Apartments in downtown LA. Overall production included 300 scenes, 200 locations, and complex special effects. Fincher compared
Fight Club to his succeeding and less complex film
Panic Room, "I felt like I was spending all my time watching trucks being loaded and unloaded so I could shoot three lines of dialogue. There was far too much transportation going on."
Cinematography
Fincher used the Super 35 format to film
Fight Club since it gave him maximum flexibility in composing shots. He hired
Jeff CronenwethJeffrey Scott "Jeff" Cronenweth, ASC is an American cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California who is best known for his role as the Director of Photography on the David Fincher films Fight Club and The Social Network, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award...
as cinematographer; Cronenweth's father
Jordan CronenwethJordan Scott Cronenweth was an American cinematographer based in Los Angeles. He worked on numerous classic films, including Gable and Lombard, Brewster McCloud, and Altered States, but is perhaps best known for Blade Runner.Cronenweth was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1978...
was the cinematographer who worked for Fincher on the 1992 film
Alien 3 but left midway through its production due to Parkinson's disease. Fincher explored visual styles in his previous films
SevenSeven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
and
The Game, and he and Cronenweth drew elements from these styles for
Fight Club.
They applied a lurid style, choosing to make people "sort of shiny". The appearance of the narrator's scenes without Tyler Durden were bland and realistic. The scenes with Tyler were described by Fincher as "more hyper-real in a torn-down, deconstructed sense—a visual metaphor of what [the narrator is] heading into". The filmmakers used heavily desaturated colors in the costuming, makeup, and art direction. Helena Bonham Carter wore opalescent makeup to portray her romantic nihilistic character with a "
smack-fiend patina". Fincher and Cronenweth drew influences from the 1973 film
American GraffitiAmerican Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age film co-written/directed by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford...
, which applied a mundane look to nighttime exteriors while simultaneously including a variety of colors.
The crew took advantage of both natural and practical light at filming locations. The director sought various approaches to the lighting setups, for example choosing several urban locations for the city lights' effects on the shots' backgrounds. He and the crew also embraced fluorescent lighting at other practical locations to maintain an element of reality and to light the prostheses depicting the characters' injuries. On the other hand, Fincher also ensured that scenes were not so strongly lit so the characters' eyes were less visible, citing cinematographer
Gordon WillisGordon Willis, ASC, is an American cinematographer best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series as well as Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan....
's technique as the influence.
Fight Club was filmed mostly at night and Fincher purposely filmed the daytime shots in shadowed locations. The crew equipped the bar's basement with inexpensive work lamps to create a background glow. Fincher avoided stylish camerawork when filming early fight scenes in the basement and instead placed the camera in a fixed position. In later fight scenes, Fincher moved the camera from the viewpoint of a distant observer to that of the fighter.
The scenes with Tyler Durden were staged to conceal that the character was a mental projection of the nameless narrator. The character was not filmed in
two shotA Two shot is a type of shot employed in the film industry in which the frame encompasses a view of two people . The subjects do not have to be next to each other, and there are many common two-shots which have one subject in the foreground and the other subject in the background.The shots are also...
s with a group of people, nor was he shown in any
over the shoulder shotIn film or video, an over the shoulder shot is a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whatever the camera is pointing toward...
s in scenes where Tyler gives the narrator specific ideas to manipulate him. In scenes before the narrator meets Tyler, the filmmakers inserted Tyler's presence in single frames for subliminal effect. Tyler appears in the background and out of focus, like a "little devil on the shoulder". Fincher explained the subliminal frames: "Our hero is creating Tyler Durden in his own mind, so at this point he exists only on the periphery of the narrator's consciousness."
While Cronenweth generally rated and exposed the Kodak
film stockFilm stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
normally on
Fight Club, several other techniques were applied to change its appearance.
FlashingIn cinematography, flashing is a method of contrast enhancement that takes advantage of the natural physical properties of film stock to bring out detail in darker areas of the print....
was implemented on much of the exterior night photography, the
contrastContrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object distinguishable from other objects and the background. In visual perception of the real world, contrast is determined by the difference in the color and brightness of the object and other objects within the same field of view...
was stretched to be purposely ugly, the print was adjusted to be
underexposedIn photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value and scene luminance over a specified area.In photographic jargon, an exposure...
,
TechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
's ENR
silver retentionBleach bypass, also known as skip bleach or silver retention, is an optical effect which entails either the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching function during the processing of a color film. By doing this, the silver is retained in the emulsion along with the color dyes. The result is a...
was used on a select number of prints to increase the density of the film's blacks, and high-contrast print stocks were chosen to create a "stepped-on" look on the print with a dirty
patinaPatina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...
.
Visual effects
Fincher hired
visual effects supervisorIn the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
Kevin Tod Haug, who worked for him on
The Game, to create visual effects for
Fight Club. Haug assigned the visual effects artists and experts to different facilities that each addressed different types of visual effects: CG modeling, animation, compositing, and scanning. Haug explained, "We selected the best people for each aspect of the effects work, then coordinated their efforts. In this way, we never had to play to a facility's weakness." Fincher visualized the narrator's perspective through a "
mind's eyeThe phrase "mind's eye" refers to the human ability for visualization, i.e., for the experiencing of visual mental imagery; in other words, one's ability to "see" things with the mind.- Physical basis :...
" view and structured a
myopicMyopia , "shortsightedness" ) is a refractive defect of the eye in which collimated light produces image focus in front of the retina under conditions of accommodation. In simpler terms, myopia is a condition of the eye where the light that comes in does not directly focus on the retina but in...
framework for the film audiences. Fincher also utilized
previsualizedPrevisualization is a function to visualise complex scenes in movie before filming. It is also a concept in still photography...
footage of challenging main-unit and visual effects shots as a problem-solving tool to avoid making mistakes during the actual filming.
The film's title sequence is a 90-second visual effects composition that depicts the inside of the narrator's brain at a microscopic level; the camera pulls back to the outside, starting at his fear center and following the thought processes initiated by his fear impulse. The sequence, designed in part by Fincher, was budgeted separately from the rest of the film at first, but the sequence was awarded by the studio in January 1999. Fincher hired
Digital DomainDigital Domain is a visual effects and animation company founded by film director James Cameron, Stan Winston and Scott Ross. It is based in Venice, Los Angeles, California...
and its visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack, who won an
Academy Award for Visual EffectsThe Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
for the 1998 film
What Dreams May ComeWhat Dreams May Come is a 1998 American supernatural drama film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The film is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title is taken from a line in Hamlet's To be, or not to...
, for the sequence. The company mapped the computer-generated brain using an
L-systemAn L-system or Lindenmayer system is a parallel rewriting system, namely a variant of a formal grammar, most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, but also able to model the morphology of a variety of organisms...
, and the design was detailed using renderings by medical illustrator Katherine Jones. The pullback sequence from within the brain to the outside of the skull included
neuronA neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
s,
action potentialIn physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal cells, called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and...
s, and a
hair follicleA hair follicle is a skin organ that produces hair. Hair production occurs in phases, including a growth phase , and cessation phase , and a rest phase . Stem cells are principally responsible for the production of hair....
. Haug explained the artistic license that Fincher took with the shot, "While he wanted to keep the brain passage looking like electron microscope photography, that look had to be coupled with the feel of a night dive—wet, scary, and with a low depth of field." The shallow
depth of fieldIn optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image...
was accomplished with the ray tracing process.
Other visual effects include an early scene in which the camera flashes past city streets to survey Project Mayhem's destructive equipment lying in underground parking lots; the sequence was a three-dimensional composition of nearly 100 photographs of
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and Century City by photographer Michael Douglas Middleton. The final scene of the demolition of the credit card office buildings was designed by Richard Baily of Image Savant; Baily worked on the scene for over fourteen months.
Midway through the film, Tyler Durden points out the
cue markA cue mark, also known as a cue dot, a changeover cue or simply a cue is a visual indicator used with motion picture film prints, usually placed on the right-hand upper corner of a frame of the film...
—nicknamed "cigarette burn" in the film—to the audience. The scene represents a turning point that foreshadows the coming rupture and inversion of the "fairly subjective reality" that existed earlier in the film. The director explained, "Suddenly it's as though the projectionist missed the changeover, the viewers have to start looking at the movie in a whole new way."
Musical score
Fincher was concerned that bands experienced in writing
film scoreA film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
s would be unable to tie the movie's themes together, so he sought a band which had never recorded for film. He pursued
RadioheadRadiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, but ultimately chose the
breakbeatIn 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...
producing duo
Dust BrothersThe Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles, California based, Grammy Award winning producers, E.Z. Mike and King Gizmo , famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work on the albums Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, Odelay by Beck, and the soundtrack to...
to score the film. The duo created a post-modern score that included drum loops, electronic scratches, and computerized samples. Dust Brothers performer
Michael SimpsonMichael Simpson, also known as "E.Z. Mike", is one-half of the Los Angeles-based producing duo the Dust Brothers, who co-wrote and produced many critically acclaimed records including the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique" and Beck's "Odelay". He won a Grammy Award for his songwriting & production on...
explained the setup: "Fincher wanted to break new ground with everything about the movie, and a nontraditional score helped achieve that." During the end credits, the song "
Where Is My Mind?"Where Is My Mind?" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies. It is the seventh track on their 1988 album Surfer Rosa. The song was written by frontman Black Francis while he attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, inspired by his experiences scuba diving in the Caribbean....
" by the Pixies is featured.
Marketing
Filming concluded in December 1998, and David Fincher edited the footage in early 1999 to prepare
Fight Club for a screening with senior executives. They did not receive the film positively and were concerned that there would not be an audience for the film. Executive producer
Art LinsonArt Linson is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.He was born in Chicago, Illinois. His directorial debut was the 1980 comedy, Where the Buffalo Roam, which was loosely based on stories by Hunter S. Thompson and starred Bill Murray as the writer...
, who supported the film, recalled the response: "So many incidences of
Fight Club were alarming, no group of executives could narrow them down." Nevertheless,
Fight Club was originally slated to be released in July 1999, later changed to August 6, 1999. The studio further delayed the film's release, this time to autumn, citing a crowded summer schedule and a hurried post-production process. Outsiders attributed the delays to the
Columbine High School massacreThe Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
earlier in the year.
Marketing executives at 20th Century Fox faced difficulties in marketing
Fight Club and at one point considered marketing it as an
art filmAn art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...
. They considered that the film was primarily geared toward male audiences because of its violence and believed that not even Brad Pitt would attract female filmgoers. Research testing showed that the film appealed to teenagers. Fincher refused to let the posters and trailers focus on Pitt and encouraged the studio to hire the advertising firm
Wieden+KennedyWieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...
to devise a marketing plan. The firm proposed a bar of pink soap with the title "Fight Club" embossed on it as the film's main marketing image; the proposal was considered "a bad joke" by Fox executives. Fincher also released two early trailers in the form of fake
public service announcementA public service announcement or public service ad is a type of advertisement featured on television, radio, print or other media...
s presented by Pitt and Norton; the studio did not think the trailers marketed the film appropriately. Instead, the studio financed a $20 million large-scale campaign to provide a press junket, posters, billboards, and trailers for TV that highlighted the film's fight scenes. The studio advertised
Fight Club on cable during
World Wrestling FederationWorld Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
broadcasts, which Fincher protested, believing that the placement created the wrong context for the film. Linson believed that the "ill-conceived one-dimensional" marketing by marketing executive Robert Harper largely contributed to
Fight Clubs lukewarm box office performance in the United States.
Theatrical run
The studio held
Fight Clubs world premiere at the 56th
Venice International Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in September 1999. For the American theatrical release, the studio hired the National Research Group to test screen the film; the group predicted the film would gross between $13 million and $15 million in its opening weekend.
Fight Club opened commercially in the United States and Canada on October 15, 1999 and earned $11,035,485 in 1,963 theaters over the opening weekend. The film ranked first at the weekend box office, defeating
Double JeopardyDouble Jeopardy is a 1999 thriller film directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd. The film is about a woman who is framed for the murder of her husband.-Plot:...
and
The Story of UsThe Story of Us is a 1999 American film directed by Rob Reiner, and starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer as a couple married for fifteen years....
, a fellow weekend opener. The gender mix of audiences for
Fight Club, argued to be "the ultimate anti-date flick", was 61% male and 39% female; 58% of audiences were below the age of 21. Despite the film's top placement, its opening gross fell short of the studio's expectations. Over the second weekend,
Fight Club dropped 42.6% in revenue, earning $6,335,870. The film, whose production budget was $63 million, grossed from its theatrical run in the United States and Canada and earned in theaters worldwide. The underwhelming North American performance of
Fight Club soured the relationship between 20th Century Fox's studio head Bill Mechanic and media executive
Rupert MurdochKeith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
, which contributed to Mechanic's resignation in June 2000.
The
British Board of Film ClassificationThe British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
reviewed
Fight Club for its November 12, 1999 release in the United Kingdom and removed two scenes involving "an indulgence in the excitement of beating a (defenseless) man's face into a pulp". The board assigned the film an 18 certificate, limiting the release to adult-only audiences in the UK. The BBFC did not censor any further, considering and dismissing claims that
Fight Club contained "dangerously instructive information" and could "encourage anti-social (behavior)". The board decided, "The film as a whole is—quite clearly—critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the
anti-social behaviourAnti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...
that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels." The scenes were restored in a two-disc DVD edition released in the UK in March 2007.
Home media
Fincher supervised the composition of the DVD packaging and was one of the first directors to participate in a film's transition to home media. The film was released in two DVD editions. The single-disc edition included a commentary track, while the two-disc special edition included the commentary track, behind-the-scenes clips, deleted scenes, trailers, fake public service announcements, the promotional music video "This is Your Life", Internet spots, still galleries, cast biographies,
storyboardStoryboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s, and publicity materials. The director worked on the DVD as a way to finish his vision for the film. Julie Markell, 20th Century Fox's senior vice president of creative development, said the DVD packaging complemented the director's vision: "The film is meant to make you question. The package, by extension, tries to reflect an experience that you must experience for yourself. The more you look at it, the more you'll get out of it." The studio developed the packaging for two months. The two-disc special edition DVD was packaged to look covered in brown cardboard wrapper. The title "Fight Club" was labeled diagonally across the front, and packaging appeared tied with twine. Markell said, "We wanted the package to be simple on the outside, so that there would be a dichotomy between the simplicity of brown paper wrapping and the intensity and chaos of what's inside." Deborah Mitchell, 20th Century Fox's vice president of marketing, described the design: "From a retail standpoint, [the DVD case] has incredible shelf-presence."
Fight Club won the 2000
Online Film Critics SocietyThe Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
Awards for Best DVD, Best DVD Commentary, and Best DVD Special Features.
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
ranked the film's two-disc edition in first place on its 2001 list of "The 50 Essential DVDs", giving top ratings to the DVD's content and technical picture-and-audio quality. When the two-disc edition went out of print, the studio re-released it in 2004 because of fans' requests. The DVD was one of the largest-selling in the studio's history; it also grossed $55 million in video and DVD rentals. With a weak box office performance in the United States and Canada, a better performance in other territories, and the highly successful DVD release,
Fight Club generated a $10 million profit for the studio.
Fight Club was released in the
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
format in the United States on November 17, 2009. Fox Creative chose Neuron Syndicate to design the art for the format's packaging, and Neuron commissioned five
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
artists to create 30 pieces of art. The art encompasses urban aesthetics found on the
East CoastThe East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
and
West CoastWest Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
of the United States as well as influences from European
street artStreet art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
. The Blu-ray edition opens with a menu screen for the romantic comedy
Never Been KissedNever Been Kissed is a 1999 comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell and starring Drew Barrymore, David Arquette, Michael Vartan, Molly Shannon, Leelee Sobieski, John C. Reilly, Jessica Alba, Marley Shelton, James Franco , Giuseppe Andrews, Jeremy Jordan and Garry Marshall...
starring
Drew BarrymoreDrew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
before leading into the actual
Fight Club menu screen. David Fincher got permission from Barrymore to include the fake menu screen.
Critical reception
When
Fight Club premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. A newspaper reported, "Many loved and hated it in equal measures." Some critics expressed concern that the film would incite copycat behavior, such as that seen after
A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
debuted in Britain nearly three decades previously. Upon the film's theatrical release,
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported the reaction: "It touched a nerve in the male psyche that was debated in newspapers across the world." Although the film's makers called
Fight Club "an accurate portrayal of men in the 1990s", some critics called it "irresponsible and appalling". Another newspaper charged, "
Fight Club is shaping up to be the most contentious mainstream Hollywood meditation on violence since Stanley Kubrick's
A Clockwork Orange."
Janet MaslinJanet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
, reviewing for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, praised Fincher's direction and editing of the film. She wrote that
Fight Club carried a message of "contemporary manhood", and that, if not watched closely, the film could be misconstrued as an endorsement of violence and
nihilismNihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, reviewing for the
Chicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, called
Fight Club "visceral and hard-edged", and "a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy" that most audiences would not appreciate. Ebert later acknowledged that the film was "beloved by most, not by me". Jay Carr of
The Boston GlobeThe Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
opined that the film began with an "invigoratingly nervy and imaginative buzz", but that it eventually became "explosively silly".
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
s David Ansen described
Fight Club as "an outrageous mixture of brilliant technique, puerile philosophizing, trenchant satire and sensory overload" and thought that the ending was too pretentious. Richard Schickel of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
described the director's
mise en scèneMise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
as dark and damp: "It enforces the contrast between the sterilities of his characters' aboveground life and their underground one. Water, even when it's polluted, is the source of life; blood, even when it's carelessly spilled, is the symbol of life being fully lived. To put his point simply: it's better to be wet than dry." Schickel applauded the performances of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, but he criticized the film's "conventionally gimmicky" unfolding and the failure to make Helena Bonham Carter's character interesting.
Cineastes Gary Crowdus reviewed the critical reception in retrospect: "Many critics praised
Fight Club, hailing it as one of the most exciting, original, and thought-provoking films of the year." He wrote of the negative opinion, "While
Fight Club had numerous critical champions, the film's critical attackers were far more vocal, a negative chorus which became hysterical about what they felt to be the excessively graphic scenes of fisticuffs ... They felt such scenes served only as a mindless glamorization of brutality, a morally irresponsible portrayal, which they feared might encourage impressionable young male viewers to set up their own real-life fight clubs in order to beat each other senseless."
Accolades
Fight Club was nominated for the 2000 Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, but it lost to
The MatrixThe Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
. Helena Bonham Carter won the 2000
Empire AwardThe 5th Empire Awards, honoring the best in film in 1999, were held on February 17, 2000 at the Park Lane Hotel. Below is a complete list of nominees and winners. Winners are highlighted in bold.-Best Debut:...
for Best British Actress. The
Online Film Critics SocietyThe Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
also nominated
Fight Club for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Edward Norton), Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Jim Uhls). Though the film won none of the awards, the organization listed
Fight Club as one of the top ten films of 1999. The soundtrack was nominated for a
BRIT AwardThe Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
, losing to
Notting HillNotting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...
.
| Award |
Category |
Recipient |
Result |
72nd Academy AwardsThe 72nd Academy Awards ceremony took place at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, and was Billy Crystal's seventh time hosting the Awards. The ceremony attracted 46.53 million viewers, an audience 3.7% bigger than the previous ceremony.The Academy Awards ceremony was dominated by two films...
|
Best Sound Editing |
|
|
| Blockbuster Entertainment Awards |
Favourite Action Team |
Brad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
Jared LetoJared Joseph Leto is an American actor, director, producer, occasional model and musician. Leto has appeared in both big budget Hollywood films and smaller projects from independent producers and art houses. He rose to prominence for playing Jordan Catalano in the teenage drama My So-Called Life...
Meat LoafMichael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...
|
|
| 2000 BRIT Awards The 2000 BRIT Awards were the 20th edition of the biggest annual pop music awards in the United Kingdom. They are run by the British Phonographic Industry and took place on 3rd March 2000 at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London.-Live performers:...
|
Best Soundtrack |
|
|
| Costume Designers Guild Awards The Costume Designers Guild , IATSE LOCAL 892 was founded in 1953 by a group of 30 motion picture costume designers. In 1986, the Costume Designers Guild joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and added Local 892 to its name...
|
Excellence in Costume Design for a Contemporary Film |
Michael Kaplan Michael Kaplan is an American movie costume designer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kaplan has been working in the Hollywood film industry since 1981....
|
|
| DVD Exclusive Awards The DVD Exclusive Awards is an award that honors direct to video productions. The awards were first held in 2001. They are awarded by online periodical Video Business and The Digital Entertainment Group....
|
Best DVD Overall Original Supplemental Material |
David Prior |
|
| 5th Empire Awards The 5th Empire Awards, honoring the best in film in 1999, were held on February 17, 2000 at the Park Lane Hotel. Below is a complete list of nominees and winners. Winners are highlighted in bold.-Best Debut:...
|
Best British Actress |
Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
|
|
| Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards The Las Vegas Film Critics Society is a non-profit organization, composed of selected print, television and internet film critics in the Las Vegas metropolitan area....
|
Best DVD |
|
|
| Best Editing |
James Haygood |
|
| MTV Movie Awards The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
|
Best Fight The MTV Movie Award for Best Fight is an award presented to actors and characters for quality fight scenes in films at the MTV Movie Awards, a ceremony established in 1992. Honors in several categories are awarded by MTV at the annual ceremonies, and are chosen by public vote...
|
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
vs. Himself |
|
| Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards Founded in 1953, Motion Picture Sound Editors is an honorary society of motion picture sound editors. The society's goals are to educate others about and increase the recognition of the sound editors, show the artistic merit of the soundtracks, and improve the professional relationship of its...
|
Best Sound Editing - Effects & Foley |
Richard Hymns
Ren Klyce
Malcolm Fife
David C. Hughes
Steve Boeddeker
Larry Oatfield
Lindakay Brown
Kyrsten Mate Comoglio |
|
| Online Film Critics Society Awards The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
|
Best Picture The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best picture of the year.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
|
|
|
| Best DVD The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best DVD is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best DVD of the year.-Winners:*2000: Fight Club *2001: Moulin Rouge ...
|
|
| Best DVD Commentary The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best DVD Commentary is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best DVD commentary of the year.-Winners:*2000: Fight Club ...
|
|
| Best DVD Special Features The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best DVD Special Features is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best DVD special features of the year.-Winners:*2000: Fight Club ...
|
|
| Best Actor The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best lead actor of the year.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
|
Edward NortonEdward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
|
|
| Best Director The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Director is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best director of the year.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
|
David Fincher David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
|
|
| Best Editing The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Editing is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best editing of the year.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-External links:*...
|
James Haygood |
|
| Best Adapted Screenplay The Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is an annual film award given by the Online Film Critics Society to honor the best screenplay of the year.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
|
Jim Uhls Jim Uhls born as James Walter Uhls is an American screenwriter and producer who rose to fame with his script adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel Fight Club...
|
|
| Political Film Society Awards The Political Film Society Awards are handed out each year by the Political Film Society. Each year, films that best promote political consciousness are selected in four categories; democracy, exposé, human rights, and peace. In addition, the Society can give special awards...
|
Democracy The Political Film Society Award for democracy is given out each year to a film that promotes, educates, and raises the awareness level of the public in the specific areas of democracy and freedom. This award has been handed out by the Society since 1988...
|
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|
Cultural impact
Fight Club was one of the most controversial and talked-about films of the 1990s. Like other 1999 films
MagnoliaMagnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance...
,
Being John MalkovichBeing John Malkovich is a 1999 American black comedy-fantasy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictional version of himself...
, and
Three Kings,
Fight Club was recognized as an innovator in cinematic form and style since it exploited new developments in filmmaking technology. After
Fight Clubs theatrical release, it became more popular via word of mouth, and the positive reception of the DVD established it as a cult film that David Ansen of
Newsweek conjectured would enjoy "perennial" fame. The film's success also heightened the profile of the novel's author, Chuck Palahniuk, to global renown.
Following
Fight Clubs release, several fight clubs were reported to have started in the United States. A "Gentleman's Fight Club" was started in
Menlo Park, CaliforniaMenlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
in 2000 and had members mostly from the
high techHigh tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
industry. Teens and preteens in
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Washington state, and
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
also initiated fight clubs and posted videos of their fights online, leading authorities to break up the clubs. In 2006, an unwilling participant from a local high school was injured at a fight club in
Arlington, TexasArlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. According to the 2010 census results, the city had a population of 365,438, making it the third largest municipality in the Metroplex...
, and the DVD sales of the fight led to the arrest of six teenagers. An unsanctioned fight club was also started at
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where matches were held on campus. The film was suspected of influencing
Luke HelderLucas John Helder is a former University of Wisconsin–Stout college student from Pine Island, Minnesota, who earned notoriety as the Midwest Pipe Bomber in May 2002.- Bombings :...
, a college student who planted
pipe bombA pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...
s in mailboxes in 2002. Helder's goal was to create a
smileyA smiley, smiley face, or happy face, is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly occurring in popular culture. It is commonly represented as a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth...
pattern on the map of the United States, similar to the scene in
Fight Club in which a building is vandalized to have a smiley on its exterior. On July 16, 2009, a 17-year-old who had formed his own fight club in
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
was charged with detonating a homemade bomb outside a Starbucks Coffee shop in the
Upper East SideThe Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
in May 2009; the
New York City Police DepartmentThe New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
reported the suspect was trying to emulate "Project Mayhem".
In 2003,
Fight Club was listed as one of the "50 Best Guy Movies of All Time" by
Men's JournalMen's Journal is an American men's lifestyle magazine focused on outdoor recreation and comprising editorials on the outdoors, environmental issues, health and fitness, style and fashion, and "gear". It is owned by Jann Wenner of Wenner Media....
. In 2004 and 2006,
Fight Club was voted by
EmpireEmpire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
readers as the ninth and eighth greatest film of all time, respectively.
Total FilmTotal Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
ranked
Fight Club as "The Greatest Film of our Lifetime" in 2007 during the magazine's tenth anniversary. In 2007,
PremierePremiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
selected Tyler Durden's line, "The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club," as the 27th greatest movie line of all time. In 2008, readers of
Empire ranked Tyler Durden first on a list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters.
In 2010, two viral mash-up videos featuring
Fight Club were released.
Ferris Club was a mash-up of
Fight Club and the film
Ferris Bueller's Day OffFerris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes.The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller , who decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago...
. It portrayed Ferris as Tyler Durden and Cameron as the narrator, "claiming to see the real psychological truth behind the John Hughes classic". The second video
Jane Austen's Fight Club also gained popularity online as a mash-up of
Fight Clubs fighting rules and the characters created by 19th century novelist
Jane AustenJane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
.
See also
- 1999 in film
The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
- Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
- List of American films of 1999
External links