Fight Club is a 1999 American film adapted from the 1996
novel of the same name by
Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by
David Fincher and stars
Edward Norton,
Brad Pitt, and
Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "
everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job in American society. He forms a "fight club" with soap salesman Tyler Durden, played by Pitt, and becomes embroiled in a relationship with him and a dissolute woman, Marla Singer, played by Carter.
Palahniuk's novel was
optioned by
20th Century Fox producer
Laura Ziskin, who hired
Jim Uhls to write the film adaptation. Fincher was one of four directors the producers considered; they hired him because of his enthusiasm for the film. Fincher developed the script with Uhls and sought screenwriting advice from the cast and others in the film industry. The director and the cast compared the film to
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and
The Graduate (1967). Fincher intended
Fight Club's violence to serve as a metaphor for the conflict between a generation of young people and the
value system of advertising. The director copied the
homoerotic overtones from Palahniuk's novel to make audiences uncomfortable and keep them from anticipating the
twist ending.