Chuck Palahniuk time while working for Freightliner. After initially publishing it as a short story (which became chapter 6 of the novel) in the 1995 compilation, "Pursuit of Happiness", Palahniuk expanded it into a full novel, which, contrary to his expectations, the publisher was willing to publish. While the original hardcover edition of the book received positive reviews and some awards, it had a short shelf life. Initially, Palahniuk struggled to find a literary agent and went without one until after the publication of "Fight Club". After he began receiving attention from 20th Century Fox, Palahniuk was signed by actor and literary
Brad Pitt film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures. "Ocean's Twelve" earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described by CNN's Paul Clinton as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford." In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife