Timothée Chalamet is taking an unlikely swing at ping-pong glory in the teaser trailer for Marty Supreme, A24’s upcoming mid-century dramedy.
Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is a young table-tennis player burning with ambition. With determination that ‘goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness’, he insists he will dominate a sport nobody seems to ever take seriously – and he makes this clear by whacking ping-pong balls with hyper-focused zeal.
Set to land in US cinemas (and hopefully Australian ones) later this year, the film looks like it blends off-beat humour, romance and mid-century aesthetics to create a unique entry in the sports-movie genre.
Directed by Josh Safdie, who’s one half of the brothers known for Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019), there’s no chance this will be an ordinary drama.
Marty Supreme: quick links
The teaser opens with Chalamet’s Marty Mauser (who looks like a yassified Friedrich Nietzche) flirting with Gwyneth Paltrow’s glamorous movie star on a hotel phone: ‘I’ve never talked to an actual movie star. You know, I’m something of a performer, too’. Queue Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’.
Watch the trailer for Marty Supreme:
Marty Supreme: dream big
Reportedly, Chalamet trained intensively for months with former table-tennis pros Diego Schaaf and Wei Wang, even performing many of his own stunts.
Paltrow, meanwhile, is making her return to non-Marvel cinema, playing a screen star in a steamy, slightly transactional relationship with Mauser.
The cast also features Odessa A’Zion, Kevin O’Leary (a Shark Tank mainstay), Tyler Okonma (AKA Tyler the Creator), Fran Drescher and less-expected names such as Abel Ferrara, Penn Jillette and Philippe Petit.
Making Marty Supreme
Loosely inspired by the life of Marty Reisman, Marty Supreme takes on 1950s ping-pong culture. A maverick in the sport, Reisman claimed two US Men’s Singles Championships (1958 and 1960), along with more than 20 international and national titles.
Reisman was a master of the ‘hardbat’ style, a classic form of table tennis played with a racket stripped of its sponge layer, favouring precision and spin over brute speed. That finesse cemented his status as one of the last greats of the game’s golden era.
For Josh Safdie, this marks his first solo directorial feature since 2008’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed, following his collaborations with his brother Benny. The script was also co-written by Safdie with Ronald Bronstein. Judging by the trailer alone, it looks like we can expect his signature kinetic energy and darkly comedic sensibility.
The film was shot on 35mm film by cinematographer Darius Khondji, with production design courtesy of Jack Fisk. Filming took place in New York and wrapped in early December 2024, with additional scenes shot in Japan in February 2025.
At a reported US$70 million, Marty Supreme may earn its place as A24’s most expensive production yet – even surpassing Alex Garland’s Civil War (2024) in scale.
A24 has slated the film for release on 25 December 2025 in the States, positioning Marty Supreme as a potential holiday breakout.
Marty Supreme does not yet have an Australian release date.
Also on ScreenHub: One More Shot review: a crowd-pleasing boozy time-travel film
You know the worm that floats about in the bottom of certain bottles of tequila? Well, I recently learned from Aussie film One More Shot that if that worm is there, then you’re drinking mezcal, not tequila.
It turns out that mezcal worms – like the one present in Minnie’s magical bottle of time-travelling ‘tequila’ – are technically moth larva (gusano de maguey if you want to get real technical). That’s right: booze makers in Mexico decided to capture and drown these poor little guys before they even had a chance to turn into beautiful Mariposas.
In a way, it’s the perfect metaphor for Emily Browning’s party-girl-turned-anaesthetist Minnie. After firmly deciding on New Years Eve 1999 that her life is going nowhere, she is all too easily tempted by her intoxicating, temporal-shifting McGuffin – and wouldn’t we all be, if a bottle’s worth of shots promised us a chance to do it all again?
Read more.
