"Fight Club" wasn't a hit upon its 1999 release. Now, it's considered a cult classic.20th Century Fox; Alyssa Powell/BIWhen Bill Mechanic was the chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, he had one simple operating principle: Get in trouble.Though his tenure as studio head from 1996 to 2000 was filled with hits, including blockbusters like "Independence Day," "Titanic," and "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," Mechanic was also known for being one of the few who listened to his gut and greenlit material considered uncommercial.On his watch, the studio released the gory best picture winner "Braveheart," the Farrelly brothers' gross-out hit comedy "There's Something About Mary," and the now-beloved "Office Space."Taking risks on offbeat movies gained Mechanic respect around Hollywood, but it also ruffled feathers among his bosses.At the time, Fox was owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and Mechanic said the Australian-born billionaire was rarely a fan of what his studio was releasing."I always thought what Rupert wanted was Page Six," Mechanic told Business Insider, comparing the mogul's movie tastes to what showed up in the gossip column of the Murdoch-owned New York Post.

"He didn't think movies were there to challenge."Mechanic would famously test his boss's patience when he gave the green light to adapt a book by a then-little-known author named Chuck Palahniuk. It was called "Fight Club."The demented tale of a nameless narrator and his imaginary friend, who start an underground brawling club that morphs into a cult hell-bent that spirals out of control, wasn't exactly studio-friendly fodder."It's all first person. No action.

All internal monologue. Brilliant. Darker than shit. But impossible," Mechanic recalled thinking when he first read Palahniuk's 1996 debut novel.But he trusted his team, and Fox 2000 president Laura Ziskin, one of the film's producers, was adamant that the material could be turned into a fascinating big-screen dissection of masculinity and 1990s consumer culture.Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in "Fight Club."20th Century FoxSoon, acclaimed director David Fincher was on board.

Hot off the success of the thriller "Seven," he brought along its star, Brad Pitt, as well as Edward Norton. The story Mechanic thought was unmakeable was shaping up to be as audacious as its storyline.Mechanic knew making the movie would lead to a battle with Murdoch, but that wasn't his only hurdle. First, he had to gain the respect of his difficult director and figure out how to market the ultra-violent story — a task that became even more challenging when the Columbine High School shooting shocked the nation six months before the movie's premiere.When the time came for Mechanic's showdown with Murdoch weeks before "Fight Club" opened, it was the beginning of the end of Mechanic's time at Fox.

Less than a year later, Mechanic and Fox parted ways. Headlines at the time said he had resigned, but Mechanic told Business Insider he had been fired."I don't regret any of it," Mechanic said.Upon its release, "Fight Club" was bashed by many critics and was a box-office disappointment, opening to a weak $11 million in October of 1999. But the movie's DVD release in the spring of 2000 changed its fortune, making "Fight Club" a sensation and buoying it to the cult-classic status it's enjoyed ever since.

Now considered one of the most daring and innovative studio releases of the late '90s for its complex plot, sharp satire, and knockout performances from Pitt and Norton, "Fight Club" marked a defining moment in genre filmmaking that has inspired countless imitators.In honor of the movie's one-night 4K rerelease in theaters April 22 — digital and Blu-ray 4K versions are available May 12 — Mechanic goes deep on the twisty journey to bring "Fight Club" to the big screen.Mechanic agreed to increase the movie's budget after Fincher pitched the opening credits sequenceDavid Fincher.Rebecca Sapp/WireImage/GettyWhen Mechanic greenlit the movie, it had a relatively small budget for late-1990s studio standards: $20 million.By the time Fincher came on board with Pitt and Norton, the budget had ballooned to more than twice the original price tag."The budget is now $57 million? That's insane!"

Mechanic recalled thinking when Ziskin gave him an update on the project.Mechanic didn't panic, but he needed to understand Fincher's vision. So he went to the filmmaker's house for a sit-down. "I went into this meeting thinking, 'There's no fucking way this is happening,'" Mechanic said.Fincher had made a lot of changes to Jim Uhls' script, but the one that blew Mechanic away was Fincher's ambitious plan for the opening credits sequence. He walked the studio head through an elaborate CGI-fueled journey through the narrator's brain, which would end with the camera coming out of his skull, revealing a gun in his mouth."What I thought he had done was take something great and give it the chance to not just be a really well-made little p