Brad Pitt and Edward Norton Recall FIGHT CLUB Being Booed By Audiences at Early Screening
David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club may be a cult classic beloved film now, but 20 years ago audiences didn’t really care for it. In fact, the movie bombed at the box office and it was booed by audiences at early screenings! The world obviously just wasn’t ready for a movie like Fight Club at the time!
Fight Club first premiered in September of 1999 at the Venice Film Festival and Brad Pitt and Edward Norton look back on the experience and talk about it with The Ringer, Brad Pitt recalls the reaction to that screening, saying:
“It gets to one of Helena’s scandalous lines—‘I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school!’—and literally the guy running the festival got up and left. Edward and I were still the only ones laughing. You could hear two idiots up in the balcony cackling through the whole thing.”
Yep, Norton and Pitt were the only two people in the theater that seemed to be enjoying it! Obviously, the rest of the audiences didn’t find the humor in it, which is a shame. What’s funnier, is that the line of dialogue that Pitt is referring to was changed. In the original script the line was, “I want to have your abortion”, which was from the book. One of the producers of the film apparently begged Fincher to take it out and replace it with the “grade school” line.
Edward Norton went on to say:
“It got booed. It wasn’t playing well at all. Brad turns and looks at me says, ‘That’s the best movie I’m ever gonna be in.’ He was so happy.”
As a fan of Fight Club, it’s hard to think that the movie actually got booed by people! I wonder how that film would have played if it was released today because of how politically incorrect it is. It probably wouldn’t have even been made!
Ya gotta love Pitt’s attitude toward the whole thing, though. He was so thrilled and happy that the movie was getting booed! He knew he made a great film and that’s all that mattered to him. As for how Norton felt, he said that the way people reacted to it was a defensive response to the messages in the film itself:
“I think the establishment, the critical culture, felt a little bit indicted by it. So they responded to it with a little bit more seriousness, and I think they missed the satirical edge of it.”
That whole anti-establishment thing just didn’t sit well with certain people. It’s a shame some people couldn’t look past that and see the hilarious satire of it all. Fox Film Entertainment Chairman at the time Bill Mechanic knew what to expect though, and talked to David Fincher about it. He explained:
“I said there would be two judgments in the movie. One would be on Friday—which I wasn’t so sure about. But there was also the judgment of history. And I thought this would be one of the great films of the decade. So I was fine to take the pummeling.”
And it totally did end up being one of the great films of the decade! He was totally right! I’m just happy that this movie actually exists. Now, excuse me while I go and watch it again.