“Fight Club” is now considered one of the biggest cult films of the 90s, but at the time it received a muted to openly negative response. This only reinforced the fact that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were doing everything right.
“Fight Club” has long since achieved the status of an absolute cult classic. The satire of capitalism and masculinity in thriller guise, directed by David Fincher, received the rare maximum rating of 5 out of 5 stars in the official FILMSTARTS review; it remains firmly at number 14 of the 250 best films of all time according to IMDb users , and Tyler Durden’s rulebook (“You don’t say a word about Fight Club”) is just one of many quotes that most film fans could probably recite in their sleep.
But when it first appeared on screens in 1999, “Fight Club” not only caused enthusiasm. Pope critic Roger Ebert saw the film as the “most blatant[n] and most fun[n] Fascist big-star film since ‘A Man Sees Red’, a festival of violence”, and also at its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, the dark work, which featured numerous provocations and shocking depictions of violence, was largely rejected.
Stream “Fight Club” on Disney+*
Two had already prepared for disturbed reactions in advance: Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, the main actors of “Fight Club”. And so they decided to smoke a joint together before the very first screening to get themselves in the right mood. “It was the Venice Film Festival and it was a midnight screening,” Pitt recalled to People Magazine. “For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to smoke a joint beforehand. The film begins, the first joke comes […], and it’s dead quiet. Another joke and it’s just dead quiet. The thing doesn’t translate at all.”
Even if the spark didn’t spread to the audience, Pitt and Norton had the time of their lives. “The more that happened, the funnier it became for Edward and I,” continues the Oscar winner (“Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood”). “So we just started laughing. We were the assholes in the background laughing at our own jokes. And we were the only ones laughing.”
Pitt to Norton: “This is the best movie I’ll ever be in.”
Norton also remembered the disastrous premiere during an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Cordon. Some viewers booed the film loudly afterwards, but that didn’t dampen the pride he and his co-star felt for “Fight Club” – on the contrary. “When the credits rolled, Brad looked at me and said, ‘This is the best movie I’ll ever be in,'” the American History X star said. “And I said, ‘Me too.’ And it was almost like we didn’t push it far enough if no one was booing.”
The negative response to the film’s official release may have prevented “Fight Club” from becoming an instant box office hit – but in retrospect, the outrage only served its cult status. Incidentally, Brad Pitt received David Fincher’s offer at a time when he was seriously questioning his career. You can read about what exactly made him question himself as an actor and which film he considers one of his absolute low points in the following article:
“I was lost”: Brad Pitt talks about the most difficult phase of his career
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2024-03-15 21:55:57
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