Discussion on Fight Club's Initial Reception

People forget that, like, Fight Club became such a,

you know, that became such a definitive film and everything,

but it was a total financial bomb.

I mean, when it came out, it didn't do well at all.

I mean, I think that movie cost 60 or 70 million bucks

to make, and I'm not even sure it got to 40.

I don't even know if it got to 40 million

at the U.S. box office.

It was very, the whole, and I remember,

they made a very strange decision to premiere that movie

at the Venice Film Festival, which didn't feel

like a good fit with subtitles and all these things,

and it got booed.

It got booed, but I had, yeah, it got booed.

And I had, at the hotel beforehand, Brad had said to me,

He kind of pulled me to the side.

He said, how do you think this is gonna go?

And I said, I don't think this is gonna go well at all.

And he said, me neither, let's get stoned.

And he had flown in private, so he had a big joint.

And we kind of stood in the back of this hotel,

and I was, you know, I'm like a lightweight,

and Brad's like a, at the time, you know, was a pro.

And we, I remember, but I remember sitting in the back

and watching the movie, and people were actively,

they were booing, they booed at the end,

and people left in the middle of it.

And at the end of it, Brad turned to me in the dark

at the end of it, kind of tearfully,

and he said, I think that's the best movie

I'm ever gonna be in.

And it was, and it sounds like a story, a funny story,

but the thing is that the experience,

the experience was really, really schizophrenic,

because there was this feeling,

and this is just to the point,

sometimes you have your own feeling about a thing.

and it doesn't grab in some of the ways that the industry or the town signals,

but then it's got its own life.

I mean, think about comedies.

I think there's things that have become,

they didn't get well reviewed and maybe they did well or they didn't do well,

but they become kind of epic.

They become classics.

It's kind of interesting because you can be,

I remember that feeling of being disappointed in the short term,

but then slowly over time you go,

oh, this is actually, this is better than,

this is better, it's almost better.

I would take that because.