Before Their Time: Fight Club

By Daniel MacDonald

April 30, 2009

Pitt continues to pummel Aniston long after the divorce.

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Welcome to Before Their Time, a column dedicated to featuring groundbreaking, influential, or otherwise well regarded films that were overlooked either critically or by audiences on their initial release. In some cases, it will be hard to believe that these movies were ever unappreciated, while others you may never have seen or heard mention of before.

You don't talk about Fight Club. That's the first (and second) rule of the titular male support group run by one Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Yet since its theatrical release in 1999, Fight Club has been a popular topic of conversation among movie fans, academic scholars, and concerned parents' groups alike. It's a wholly polarizing piece of work: those who like it tend to love it, while detractors save a special, scornful place in their hearts for this knuckle sandwich of a movie. Regardless, it's hard to deny that Fight Club was one of the most original, provocative, and ambitious films of the '90s, and its influence has resounded throughout the industry in the years since. The two-disc special edition DVD was a big seller, and its inevitable Blu-ray release promises to do similar business as rabid fans upgrade their collections to enjoy high definition blood spatter. University campus poster sales regularly feature Fight Club paraphernalia amongst their wares; and millions of people worldwide have given at least cursory consideration to exactly where that bar of fancy soap came from...

In contrast to its eventual success, David Fincher's Fight Club landed with a proverbial thud when it hit theatres in October, 1999. While some critics championed the film, others ravaged it with what could very nearly be categorized as outrage. Los Angeles Times film reviewer Kenneth Turan remarked, "What's most troubling about this witless mishmash of whiny, infantile philosophizing and bone-crunching violence is the increasing realization that it actually thinks it's saying something of significance." Even though he gave the movie only two stars, effectively a "Thumbs Down", Roger Ebert at least was able to nail its polarizing nature, saying, "Fight Club is... the kind of ride where some people puke and others can't wait to get on again."




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Despite a reasonable opening weekend, taking the number one spot thanks, no doubt, to its headliners Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, Fight Club earned a mere $37 million in its theatrical run. Foreign sales boosted it just over the $100 million mark, but with a reported production budget of $65 million, it probably didn't break even once marketing costs are factored in. Producer Art Linson details the gory details of presenting Fight Club to the Fox studio executives, and their altogether vicious reaction, in his excellent book, What Just Happened?.

Personally, I was quite taken by Fight Club before it even hit the scene. A good friend of mine and I, both working at a video store at the time, watched the theatrical trailer (included at the head of a VHS copy of Wing Commander) over and over again, trying to figure out what it was all going to be about, and especially why a giant metal sphere would be rolling through an office tower lobby. We showed up opening night, and saw the movie three times in its first week. I was a Fincher fanatic, madly in love with his previous efforts Se7en, The Game, and, yes, even Alien 3; Fight Club seemed like Fincher taken off the leash, bringing a bold new cinematic vision to the masses that would clearly go unappreciated for some time.


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