"Almost everything I do is a romantic comedy," Palahniuk said during an interview while at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where the film was picked up after its premiere by distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures. At Sundance, the film also won a special jury prize for best work by an ensemble cast.
Palahniuk noted that most of his books have been or are under some kind of option for a film adaptation but that it takes a specific sensibility and something of a strong stomach to bring his dark, subversive stories to the screen.
Gregg only had a brief telephone conversation with Palahniuk before setting off to adapt "Choke," one in which the author's only real instructions were "don't be too faithful." After many drafts over several years, writing in-between acting jobs, Gregg finally finished a script he was happy with.
Though Palahniuk spent a few days on-set while "Choke" was shooting in New Jersey, Gregg had his hands full with the film's brisk 25-day schedule, so the two didn't actually get to spend much time together until Sundance and more recently while promoting the film.
"You expect some cross between an ultimate fighter and an anarchist and Jonathan Swift," Gregg said of the well-cultivated mystique around Palahniuk. "And he's got this attitude that's insanely genuine and weirdly wise. He really sort of talks about the book as if it's something he gathered from a lot of sources, some very personal and some not at all. He wants to talk about the stuff I added and the connections I made between the characters he created. Strangely, those are his favorite parts."
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Facing the fan base
Once he finished the film, the prospect of facing Palahniuk's notoriously rabid and loyal fans, who often turn his readings into rock star events -- people frequently faint -- was an intimidating prospect for Gregg.
"At screenings there's always someone who says, 'How could you have taken out that line?' " recalls Gregg. "And I always think, 'Dude, it wasn't easy. It was painful for me too.' "
At a recent post-screening Q&A, Gregg slyly answered a question regarding the budget of "Choke" by noting that if "Fight Club" was made for $63 million, "Choke" cost about $60 million less. He hopes the distinctions between the films will be apparent.
"I don't want to get into the game of condescending to that audience," he said of the fans of the "Fight Club" movie and Palahniuk's books. "I feel like they'll understand the difference between these two books and these two movies. At the end of the day, the only obligation I had was to make a good movie out of this."
As the multi-year trip Gregg has made bringing his version of Palahniuk's "Choke" to the screen comes to an end, the filmmaker still can't quite believe it's happening.
"In the years the script was being developed," he said, "way too many people looked at it as incredibly dark and not funny. It wasn't until the first screening at Sundance, when people laughed, that I was sure that it wasn't one of those incredibly vile dirty jokes that I love and that usually clear a room."
