David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic Fight Club tells the story of an unnamed office worker, played by Edward Norton, who seeks escape from his boring life. Along with his friend, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), Norton’s character—sometimes referred to as Jack—forms a violent, all-male organization to help others regain control of their lives. However, things begin to spiral out of control for both of them as the club draws in more and more members. If this sounds vaguely like the plot of another well-known movie, there’s a good reason for that.
In the DVD commentary for 2003’s Old School, director Todd Phillips revealed that he wrote the hit Luke Wilson-Vince Vaughn film as a comedic take on Fight Club. And when you break it down with that in mind, it starts to make a lot of sense, with Wilson’s Mitch serving the same purpose as the “Jack” character, and Vaughn’s Beanie pushing him into a new kind of lifestyle, much like Tyler Durden. The frat in Old School also attracts many older men seeking to recapture their youth. Other nods to Fight Club include Mitch using the photocopier at work, Beanie wearing a leather jacket, and Patrick Cranshaw’s “Blue” dying for the cause as Meat Loaf’s Bob did in the earlier movie.
Old School Was Secretly a Fight Club Parody, According to Its Director
Phillips has been very vocal about his appreciation for Fight Club over the years. During a 2006 interview, Phillips told Ain’t It Cool News that he was obsessed with Fincher’s movie, calling it “the ultimate in awkward men films.” Furthermore, he pointed out that he’d even gone as far as to shoot a scene from School for Scoundrels in the same gymnasium where they shot the Fight Club scene in which Norton’s character meets Meat Loaf’s. “In fact, it’s got the same American flag hanging up behind them, which you would only know if you were as obsessed with Fight Club as I am,” Phillips explained.
Fincher, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be as enamored with Phillips’s work. Following the release of Phillips’s Joker in 2019, Fincher suggested that nobody would’ve taken a shot on such a project had The Dark Knight not been so successful years earlier. He went on to call Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker a conflation of the main characters from Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy trapped in “a betrayal of the mentally ill.” On top of that, Fincher contrasted the studio’s confidence in Joker with the lack of faith Fox had in Fight Club (interestingly enough), claiming that it was a miracle his film ever got made.
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