The producer of the Spider-Man franchise and Fight Club has died of a seven-year battle with cancer.
Before Spider-Man overshadowed everything she did before, like being an associate producer of A Star is Born or making a movie star of Kevin Costner in No Way Out, Laura Ziskin got to be a producer of Fight Club while running Fox 2000 studio in 1999.
Turned out to be a little be conflictual as you would expect with Fincher, especially over the infamous abortion joke.
According to Sharon Waxman's account "Rebels on the Backlot", while Laura Ziskin supported Fincher's nihilistic vision, she was not happy with the 'I want to have your abortion' line. She found it offensive and tried to convince Fincher to have it removed. Fight Club director claimed it was in the shooting script, and unless the tested audience would not respond to it, it stays. Ziskin begged so eventually Fincher came with a devilish deal : he would replace the line but whatever it would be he would have the final say. And so it became :
Oh my God, I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school.Legend says the line got bigger laugh from the audience than the abortion one, and Ziskin again begged Fincher this time to have the abortion put back in...
- Fight Club
Read Sharon Waxman's account here.
In memory of Mrs Ziskin, let us still Stand Up to Cancer (Fincher 2008 commercial) :
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