One of the main characteristics of a cult film is a film that was not received that well commercially or critically at the time of its release. Often a cult film in the making will receive mixed reviews from professional critics and be considered a box office disappointment by the studio. There are many reasons a film does not perform well commercially, in the case of Fight Club the reason was 20th Century Fox’s marketing strategy of targeting young men who they believed would be attracted to the film due to its violent themes. However the film’s complex themes and unconventional narrative unsurprisingly did not grasp the mainstream audience. In the case of cult films, a film that does not perform well at the box office will often spawn a cult following for rejecting this mainstream audience.
Coming off of this due to David Fincher’s insistence in making a film that was unique and didn’t conform to genre conventions he ended up making Fight Club that challenged and rejected genre altogether. It is difficult to define what exactly the genre is that Fight Club falls into. The title alone makes the film seem like an action film and like I said the studio tried to sell the film as one. IMDB lists Fight Club as nothing but a drama, no subgenre or anything. Clearly they are mistaken with this description as the film has elements of psychological thriller, action and a large amount of black comedy. Fight Club is a film that is near impossible to play accurately and I believe this is why it was so difficult to sell to an audience at first release and why it appeals to people years on enough for it to become sleeper hit that it is.
There is a certain type of person that takes part in the culture of a cult film and it seems this type of person was drawn in by Fight Club’s themes. Running themes of Fight Club include the rejection of capitalism, celebrity culture and modern living. This appealed to the everyman and teenagers in a way that other films haven’t since. These themes seduced a generation of cinema-going young men. Peter Travers described the film as "not only anti-capitalism but anti-society and, indeed, anti-God." In a way this is what drew in a cult audience, people who wanted to see a film that questioned norms and values of society, norms and values that will always be relevant and will always need questioning, meaning Fight Club may never become dated and the relevance of its messages will never diminish. Perhaps people at the time people weren’t ready to see it for what it was, only after years of debating and discussion do the select audience accept Fight Club.
Cult films are known to have a certain figure or symbol that in one image encapsulates what the film is trying to say and what the themes of said film are. In the case of Fight Club we can look at Tyler Durden as the leader of this cult, both in the film and in real life. Tyler Durden’s motives within the film are extreme no doubt, but they can be so easily translated into the society we live in today. Tyler Durden has become a huge staple of pop culture and his character seems to resonate with people in a way that only well-acted, well written and well executed characters do. For a film to become a cult film there needs to be a starting point, a spring board that consists of a simple element within the film that people can latch onto. Other examples of this could be The Dude from The Big Lebowski (d. Coen Brothers), Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (d. Martin Scorsese) and Napoleon Dynamite (d. Jared Hess).
To conclude Fight Club is definitely a film with a huge cult following and status. Due to its conforming to most of the characteristics typical of a cult film. Perhaps the only attribute it does not conform to would be a ‘so bad its good’ characteristic. This is a group of cult films Fight Club would not fall into as it is clearly a well-made film in all respects.
