October 15, 1999: “Fight Club” released in US theaters

On October 15, 1999, David Fincher's "Fight Club", an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel, opened in US theaters. The screenplay was written by Jim Uhls, and the roles were played by Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter: Tyler Durden, the unnamed narrator and Marla Singer. The world premiere had taken place earlier, on September 10, 1999, at the 56th Venice Film Festival, and the film was released in the US by 20th Century Fox.

Filming took place in Los Angeles and its surroundings from July to December 1998, and the production budget was between $63 million and $65 million. Before the release, studio executives did not approve of the film and restructured the marketing campaign planned by Fincher in order to reduce expected losses.

Box office

At the box office the film did not meet the studio's expectations. In its first weekend in 1,963 theaters in the US and Canada it grossed $11 million and still took first place, beating Double Jeopardy and The Story of Us. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B−.

Critics were divided, and the film became one of the most controversial and widely discussed pictures of the 1990s.

Cult film

"Fight Club" got a second life on home video: the DVD came out on June 6, 2000, and in the first ten years more than 6 million copies were sold on DVD and video. This cemented its status as a cult film, and in 2009, for its tenth anniversary, The New York Times called it "the defining cult movie of our time". Worldwide grosses, including re-releases, amounted to $102.4 million.

Image: ManoSolo13241324 CC BY-SA 4.0 · License

Translation editor: Ловушкин А.