Palahniuk: It was easy to hand over 'Choke'

Chuck Palahniuk has revealed that he found it easy to hand over the Choke film rights to first-time director Clark Gregg.

The Fight Club author said that he had no trepidation in letting Gregg adapt the book because he never expected the film version to go into production.

He explained: "At the time [Clark] bought the option he had just gotten his first screenplay produced and that was What Lies Beneath. That turned out so well, and people were so impressed by it, that it was kind of easy to hand off and see what he would do with it.

"Also part of you doesn't expect it will ever go into production. So, it's kind of easy because you think it's never going to happen, so why not?"

Palahniuk added that he was not concerned that his original story would be drastically changed while going through the Hollywood system.

He said: "You know, that's less of a possibility now because thanks to David Fincher being so faithful to Fight Club, the book had such a passionate following that I think people recognise that if they monkey with the story too much it is going to p*** off the existing audience for that story and they don't want to do that."

> Click here for our interview with Choke director Clark Gregg