Edward Norton appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden to plug his new film: Motherless Brooklyn, a twisty noir the actor also wrote and directed. But James Corden had other plans. He wanted to pop on Brad Pitt's maroon leather jacket. He wanted to gather his colleagues into a grimy old warehouse. He wanted to reenact Fight Club, Norton's 1999 cult classic made with Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, and director David Fincher. But Norton was fully not in the mood.

Corden calls his makeshift get-together "Late Late Show Fight Club," which is certainly, to paraphrase another Fincher film, clean. All of his staff has trained for weeks and is ready to fight -- well, except for the very shirtless "Tim," who is eager to set up some healthy boundaries for his professional and personal lives. Corden just needs one thing: for Norton to co-sign on the whole affair and reprise his role as the unnamed Narrator in the controversial cult classic. Norton, however, is ready to bail nearly immediately.

fight-club-brad-pitt-edward-norton
Image via 20th Century Fox

Why? Well, for starters, Fight Club came out 20 years ago. And as Norton eloquently puts it, "I think we've absorbed that there's better ways of expressing our masculinity." Will Corden listen to reason? Of course the heck not. He, like Pitt before him, implores Norton to hit him as hard as he can. Does Norton bite? You'll have to watch the clip for yourself. Oh, and by the way -- shout out to the Late Late Show production team for their excellent color correction and soundtrack work on this piece. It feels like "late '90s edgy cinema" in the best way possible!

Check out the full Norton/Corden-in-for-Pitt Fight Club remake you didn't know you needed below. And for more on Motherless Brooklyn, check out our interview with Norton and co-star Gugu Mbatha-Raw.