After just an “Avengers: Age of Ultron” footage reveal and an “Ant-Man” panel that was caught under the specter of the project recently losing its director (no new movie announcements beyond a “Guardians of the Galaxy” sequel, no exciting casting revelations), it really did seem from afar like the Marvel Comic-Con presentation was a bit of a whiff this year. I'm sure all in attendance enjoyed the early look, but it felt like it may have been pretty weak sauce, particularly if you were trying to decide between that and a unique Chuck Palahniuk/David Fincher/”Fight Club” panel and opted for the superheroes instead.
Fincher's 1999 masterwork is celebrating its 15th anniversary this October and this panel was a “from page to screen and beyond” look at the novel's journey from Palahniuk's brain to pop culture phenomenon. A little over a year ago, the author announced plans to write a sequel in comic book format. He announced at the time that it would be a 10-issue maxi-series. Then earlier this week it was revealed that the series will be hitting shelves in April and that it will pick up a decade after the events of the original 1996 novel.
“['Fight Club' was] such a tirade against fathers – everything I had thought my father had not done combined with everything my peers were griping about their fathers,” Palahniuk said recently. “Now to find myself at the age that my father was when I was trashing him made me want to revisit it from the father's perspective and see if things were any better and why it repeats like that.” He went on to tease that Tyler Durden “is something that maybe has been around for centuries and is not just this aberration that's popped into” the mind of the original story's nameless narrator (played by Edward Norton in Fincher's film).
Alas, I'm not down there, so I couldn't bask in this, but here are some choice Twitter reactions I dug up while following along…
David Fincher: “Fight Club is about moving thru a modern disconnected society. It's a satire. Many don't get that.” #sdcc
– Nerd Hour Podcast (@NerdHour) July 27, 2014
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Fincher: “FIGHT CLUB sold 13 million DVDs. It paid for itself.” #sdcc
– Drew Morton (@thecinemadoctor) July 27, 2014
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David Fincher: “My daughter had a friend named Max. She told me Fight Club is his fav movie. I told her never to talk to Max again.” #SDCC
– Nerd Hour Podcast (@NerdHour) July 27, 2014
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David Fincher: “They wanted to make Fight Club without a voiceover. So I fired that producer.” #sdcc
– Nerd Hour Podcast (@NerdHour) July 27, 2014
Fincher on Fox's challenge marketing #FightClub: “men don't want to see Brad Pitt shirtless, and women don't want to see fighting.” #Sdcc
– Matthew Kreutzer (@mattkreutzer) July 27, 2014
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“Today we'd just send out for that shit like pizza.” David Fincher on Angel Face's makeup job in Fight Club. #SDCC #quoteoftheday
– Liana Rose Photo (@LianaRosePhoto) July 27, 2014
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David Fincher: “Fox marketed Fight Club mostly on the World Wrestling Federation. That's when I knew we were doomed.” #sdcc
– Nerd Hour Podcast (@NerdHour) July 27, 2014
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David Fincher on Fight Club's ending: “Who the f*** doesn't want to see credit card companies blow up?” #SDCC
– Nerd Hour Podcast (@NerdHour) July 27, 2014
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It's not much, but hey — here's hoping SOMEONE was over there to cover it instead of watching Josh Brolin come out wearing a Hasbro Infinity Gauntlet.
UPDATE: Praise be, Backstory's Jeff Goldsmith got the whole darn conversation for his iTunes podcast.
Along with Fincher, attending the convention this year were prestige directors like Christopher Nolan and Michael Mann (both first-timers). Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Alfonso Cuarón have all broken their Comic-Con cherries in recent years, too. Before you know it, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Martin Scorsese and Spike Jonze will be making the trek.
Or maybe more and more studios will realize that it's just not worth the hassle. TV is dominating down there as of late, and it makes sense that serialized entertainment would begin to slowly take over. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in the next couple of years.
More on Fincher later this Oscar season…surely.