David Fincher

Best Adapted Everything

Fight Club is directed by David "King of Book Adaptations" Fincher, who also brought us The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.

Fight Club is actually Fincher's first book adaptation. Prior to this, he, like many other directors, directed music videos (for Sting, Madonna, and Aerosmith, among others) and on the big screen he directed Alien3—which had Sigourney Weaver shave her head and find out what the alien's breath smelled like (it smells like another alien)—and Se7en, which is about Brad Pitt wanting to know what's inside a box. 

These films established Fincher's style—the creative way he frames dialogue and exposition, his steady-cam footage and clever camera angles, and the way he deals with generally strange or uncomfortable subject matter (carnivorous extraterrestrials, Gwyneth Paltrow, etc.)—and made him perfect to direct Fight Club.

He already had plenty of street cred at this point, giving him power with the producers (see The Production Studio for more on a line he changed against their will), but Fight Club catapulted him to superstardom, allowing him to work on even more twisted, darker films.