Two decades after its initial debut, Fight Club still remains a pretty buzzworthy and quotable film. The adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel followed a mysterious narrator (Edward Norton) and his new “friend”, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), as their underground group had a surprising and ever-evolving impact on the world around it. There are quite a few lines from that film that are still part of the pop culture world today, and a new interview brings a bit of context to a lesser-known line. Norton revisited various milestones in his career during a recent appearance on PeopleTV, including a sequence between him and Pitt’s character in Fight Club. During the scene, Norton’s character remarks that he’d be willing to fight anybody, even William Shatner — but apparently the actor still doesn’t share that belief.
“No. I feel that would be unfair,” Norton said on if he would fight the Star Trek icon now. “He’s enjoying his Priceline money. Leave the man alone.”
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While the root of the “I’ll fight William Shatner” line has never been officially confirmed, some think that it was Fight Club director David Fincher’s payback for a parody Shatner did of Se7en. The sketch, which aired during the MTV Awards, saw Shatner poking fun at the controversial final scene of the Fincher-directed film, and taking it to even more ridiculous heights.
While Fight Club has its fair share of iconic moments, the film initially didn’t succeed at the box office, ultimately earning just over $100 million at the worldwide box office. Even with the film now being seen as a cultural phenomenon, the first box office performance apparently stung the cast and crew.
“I think there was a reluctance on the part of some of the people who were actually marketing it, to embrace the idea that it was funny, and honestly I think they felt indicted by it,” Norton shared. “I think if you felt more like the guy who plays my boss in the film, then you tended to not like the film. But also, it just was a tough one to distill.”
“It was an interesting experience because we all loved it and we were very confident about it. We were a little stung,” the actor pointed out. “You can never completely detach your ego to how does it do when it first opens, but then we all had the very special experience of realizing that the relationship it formed with people was everything you dream of when you get into films.”
(Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)
