Russell Crowe as Tyler Durden. You gotta be kidding, right? Nope: there was a point in time whereupon this could have been a genuine reality. Star of Gladiator and various Hollywood meltdowns, Russell Crowe, might have ended up as the infamous character who asks Edward Norton to punch him in a parking lot. You can imagine the sort of on-set fight that might've unravelled had Norton whacked Crowe for real (as he did with Brad Pitt). A major brawl, for certain. So the producers over at 20th Century Fox met with Crowe around the same period as they met with Pitt; at the time, Crowe was considered a hot property because of his recently successful turn in L.A. Confidential, and Pitt was coming off of the back of a flop with Meet Joe Black. Eventually it was decided that Pitt was more suited for the role (the studio offered him $17.5 million dollars to play Tyler Durden) and Crowe was out. Fight Club with Russell Crowe, though? No thanks.