What Just Happened? (19 page)

I positioned myself around the corner of the theater, trying to get a candid bead on the results. Remember, even if a picture ‘falls off the screen,' key executives must go over and congratulate the director. Also,
Fight Club
had yet to be tested on a preview audience, so no matter what these executives actually thought of the movie on their own, the preview audience would eventually redefine those feelings. Even if they were apprehensive, it was too soon for them to overreact. Should the audience response turn out to be grand, they wouldn't want to be remembered as naysayers.

Robert Harper, the marketing executive, was the first to exit.

‘Hey, how 'bout that, huh?' I asked.

He looked pissed off, annoyed that I was already waiting for him. He nodded silently in my direction without facing me. He put on his sunglasses and walked stiffly back to the administration building. That he didn't stay to commiserate with Bill Mechanic or the other executives could mean several things. He was just a marketing guy. It was too soon to draw any conclusions.

Tom Sherak, in his fifties, was then a high-ranking executive at Fox, theoretically in charge of distribution. This meant he was responsible for strategizing when and how many theaters a movie was to be released in, as well as for negotiating the specific terms with the theater owners. He reported to Mechanic, who reported to Chernin, but Sherak had been at Fox for twenty-five years, long before they were ever there. He knew where all of the skeletons were hidden, and he was smart enough to avoid involving himself in the content of a picture. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because the executives above him, who thought of themselves as creative types, weren't too concerned with his artistic opinions. In truth, they didn't really give a shit. Tom was the guy that booked the movies
into theaters. If they were bad, he could always blame the other Fox managers, who prided themselves on being a whole lot hipper than Sherak.

Through the years, I felt that Tom, a truly decent guy, would reflect the barometric pressure of the theater owners but not necessarily the audience. So when I saw him step out from the screening room, I was curious. It might have been my twisted imagination, but he seemed slightly disoriented. He shuffled around the parking lot like a man behind a couple of stiff margaritas struggling to remember where he had parked his car. I guessed the movie had gotten to him.

‘Hey, Tom.'

‘Whoa, whoa.' He held his hand up as a shield.

‘Tom, I know it's probably not your thing but …'

‘What
is
it?'

I began walking with him toward the administration building. ‘Tom, it's a terrific movie is what it is.'

He looked at me queerly, trying to gauge my sincerity. He started to walk faster. ‘Well, there's a lot going on, I'll give you that.'

‘It's about the disillusionment of an entire young male generation.'

‘Huh?'

‘You know, feelings of emasculation, materialism run amok,
rage
.'

‘Huh?' He shook his head. It seemed to me that he just wanted to go home and hug his family.

‘Tom, you gotta admit it's funny.'

‘No.'

‘Yes.'

‘No. Don't say that.'

‘I'll grant you, I was surprised that nobody laughed, but this movie is
funny
.'

‘I didn't see funny.'

‘Trust me, it's funny.'

‘I want you to do me a favor.'

‘Sure, Tom.'

‘Next week, I have a psychiatrist—'

‘But, I …'

‘I want you to pick a day, any day, and I would like you to go with me and explain this to him, in my presence, why you think this thing is
funny
.'

‘Tom, do you really think that's necessary?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘I got a full week.'

‘It would do you some good.'

‘Thanks anyway.'

‘I think I know funny,' he said.

Watching him walk away, I realized then that when the exhibitors saw the movie, they were going to freak. Incidentally, in Sherak's defense, when he did see
Fight Club
the second and third time, with a younger audience that understood and responded to the humor, he admitted that although he hadn't warmed to it the first time, the more he saw it, the funnier and better it became.

Mechanic and Ziskin finally emerged from the theater. They were white. They had thinly creased smiles etched on their faces, but it was evident to me that they weren't sure what had just happened and were even less sure what was going to happen. They had a lot of personal career dreams wrapped up in this high-profile movie. If they had guessed right, they would be lionized. If they had guessed wrong, who knows, they might just have to pack up their underwear and ignominiously face their futures as independent film producers. That sort of fate can drain the blood from the hardiest of executives.

Throughout the film's production, Mechanic – especially Mechanic – had taken on the pressure with a wavering composure. He had stood up for
Fight Club
as boldy as he could, but after this screening, he knew that if this baby didn't fly, there might be a huge career price to pay. Gearing up for this eventuality was obviously causing some wear and tear. His eyes were slightly dilated, his shoulders a bit more slumped. He looked like one of those good high-stakes poker players in Las Vegas who, having just had all of
his fingers broken, and having lost his entire stake, wanly addresses the crowd, ‘A mere flesh wound, ladies and gents, a mere flesh wound.'

Mechanic and Ziskin made their way over to Fincher to praise him. Ziskin clasped her palms together in prayer mode, touched her fingers to her mouth, spread her legs slightly for better balance, and almost knelt before him, saying, ‘Gosh, David, you've really done it this time.' Then she continued with something along the lines of ‘I've got some issues, of course, it's all in the details, you know … there's lots to talk about … but … what a, what a, what a …'

Mechanic gestured stiffly to me with his hand, then nodded at Fincher, as if to reassure himself that everything was going to be all right. I figured he was already privately rehearsing how to explain this time bomb to Murdoch and Chernin. This left him even more preoccupied. When he finally spoke to Fincher, he mustered something brave like ‘Powerful, very powerful …' Fincher smiled back and graciously thanked him. Then Mechanic addressed me with one of those fateful lines: ‘I don't care what anyone says, I'm proud of it, really, really proud of it.' Uh-oh.

What was clear was that nobody would be able to come up with a simple, concise response to this early cut that would calm their nerves and make the journey more palatable. I recall when Brian De Palma and I presented
The Untouchables
to the Paramount executives for the first time, they were concerned about the violence. The executives focused on the shoot-out at the train-station stairs, where ‘the bookkeeper' gets shot in the head against a marble wall. As he slid down the wall, De Palma revealed remnants of his brain, hair, and blood sticking to the marble. The executives had convinced themselves that this was the singular moment in the movie destined to turn off women. They knew we were not going to touch the soon to be famous Capone/baseball-bat sequence. So, instead of giving us a laundry list of suggestions, it became easier for them to focus on this one incident and try to get us to tone it down.

At the customary meeting the next day, they made their case. De Palma considerately said, ‘Okay, let me take a look at it.' When
we walked out, I asked him what his intentions were, since both of us liked that shot. He turned to me and said, ‘Two words:
final cut
.'

So many incidences in
Fight Club
were alarming, no group of executives could narrow them down. It's not as if, let's say, they could suggest cutting the scene with Chloe (the terribly disturbing Meryl Streep look-alike skeletal cancer victim who fancied Jack) and everything would be okay. I had felt the screening room collectively wince when Chloe talked about how she's learned to face death but all she really wants to do ‘is get laid for the last time.' Or, if not that scene, perhaps they might suggest losing the sex scene between Marla and Tyler, where Brad, leering naked in the doorway, wearing a yellow rubber glove, with Marla reeling from ecstasy in the background, asks Norton if he would like to ‘finish her off.' Or, what about the scene where Tyler and Jack steal real human fat from a liposuction clinic to make designer soap and end up spilling it all over themselves while attempting to escape over a chain-link fence? Or, remember when Tyler, working as a movie projectionist, spliced a single frame of a man's penis into children's films? Or …

Mechanic and Ziskin had been through many tough screenings before, but this mélange was going to put them thoroughly to the test. Before any meaningful comments could be made, they badly needed to regroup. It was like spitting in a hurricane. I loved the movie. It was so audacious that it couldn't be brought under control. Soon Murdoch and Chernin would be flopping around like acid-crazed carp wondering how such a thing could even have happened.

Fincher was leaning against the outside wall of the screening room, waiting patiently for the executives to leave. The film's guerrilla assault was so potent that many viewers were initially going to get sidetracked from appreciating some of the groundbreaking techniques that were on display. But Fincher knew that. From a directing standpoint there were so many daring moments. The ‘jiggled camera' scene where Tyler, glaring in the lens, was saying, ‘You are not your job … you are not your khakis,' while the frame around him was coming apart as if self-destructing in the
movie projector, was one of several innovative sequences that had never before been seen. Perhaps my favorite magic trick was Fincher's rendering of the psychological cat-and-mouse game that culminates with Jack realizing that the only way he can get rid of Tyler is to shoot himself in the mouth. Jack jams the barrel into his own mouth, pulls the trigger, and fires a bullet. The monster explosion lights up his jaw cavity, blows open his cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie's. The bullet rips through the side of his face, but he miraculously survives. It's so real you'd think Norton might have killed himself while trying to do the scene, and it's so seamless that if you go frame by frame on a DVD player, it still gets your attention.

In short, Fincher had made the movie he wanted to make. Its essence was frozen in concrete. If you could have pulled him aside and asked him what sort of relief he could offer any of these Fox guys, in the form of modifying the cut, he would have shrugged and said, as he had often said, ‘There's nothing
to
do, we didn't make this movie for
them
.'

I wanted to suggest to Mechanic and Ziskin that they go get drunk or whistle in a graveyard. I thought better of it. It was time for the producer to be seen and not heard. There was nowhere else for them to go. Finally, they turned to Fincher and said something like, ‘Terrific … uh, work … uh, uh … we'll talk tomorrow.'

We knew by now that when
Fight Club
hit the streets, at least the reaction wouldn't be lukewarm. The critics ran the gamut from ‘bold, brilliant, and inventive' to ‘loathsomely indefensible.' It became the kind of thing that if you loved it, truly loved it, you would be deeply suspicious of those who didn't connect with it. What I hadn't anticipated was the dramatic response from those who were uncomfortable with it. They almost wanted to punish those responsible for this ‘heinous' act. I remember a couple of months after the picture was released, I ran into Robbie Friedman, a high-ranking executive at Paramount Pictures, and a friend of mine. All he could do was shake his head.

‘How could you?' he asked.

‘Huh?'

I was about to start with ‘Don't blame us producers, we're just the monkeys that do the dishes,' or better yet, the more confrontational approach, ‘You stupid bastard, it's a brilliant movie, and anyways, you must admit it's darkly funny,' but by that time I'd already been down that road too many times.

The movie opened to lackluster domestic box office results, largely due, I believe, to an ill-conceived one-dimensional Bob Harper marketing campaign. Wait. Is there a producer still breathing who doesn't blast the poor marketing stiff for his failed movies? It's Producing 101 to blame somebody else. Frankly, with all of the time I've spent in this town, I'd like to think I'm above all that, but I'm not.

That icy demeanor I spotted after Harper left the screening room that day turned out to be more than just cramps from his commissary lunch. Deep down, he didn't really like the movie, and many would say, ‘Who can blame him?' Nonetheless, it's an awkward job to try to sell something that you either don't understand or don't really like. In his case he was too reluctant to admit he didn't understand the movie's intentions, fearing that he would expose himself as no longer au courant. Instead of abdicating the responsibility of the campaign to Fincher and other vendors who had a feel for their audience, he smugly kept control of it. The result was an initial campaign that only sold the titillation of young guys beating the shit out of each other without letting the audience know of the much smarter and wittier ironic purpose to the whole journey. It was a knuckleheaded move.

The first couple of weeks after we returned from the Venice Film Festival were edgy. Mechanic's early prediction was that the movie's losses would be substantial. The ‘I told you so people' were temporarily buoyed until the foreign box office improved the number significantly, and then the DVD came out, with a new campaign, to become one of the largest-selling DVDs in Fox's history. In the end, Mechanic revised his estimate and said that the film would eventually return a small but definite ten-million-dollar profit. Of course, when Bill told me this at the Polo Lounge, eighteen
months later, he was no longer working at Fox and neither was Laura Ziskin.