Marty Supreme Is King
Is it too much to say Timothee Chalamet is a once in a generation actor? Name me one bad movie he’s been in… Wonka? Ok you got me on that one.
But his latest film coming out from A24 costars Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, and Tyler the Creator among others. Chalamet plays Marty Mauser in this sports comedy-drama loosely based on the larger than life table tennis champion Marty Reisman. Reisman lead a wild life and it’s sort of baffling that he was only the inspiration, not the entire source material for the film. Reisman was a hustler who’d lure people into a false sense of security gambling on a couple rounds of table tennis. He’d throw the first couple matches, then do a hail Mary and clean out his opponents by letting them see his real skill. Sometimes he’d play blindfolded or sitting down to give his opponents a fighting chance. One time at a national tournament he put half a grand on himself with who he thought was a bookie. Turns out it was the head of the US Table Tennis Association and he got escorted out by the cops.
The film was penned and directed by Josh Safdie(Uncut Gems) with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein. Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is cocky beyond belief, and self determined to make it doing what he loves. “The story is about having—not to sound cheesy—a dream, feeling like you’re destined for something, and executing that, not letting anybody or anything get in your way.” Odessa A’zion told WMagazine. “On my first day, for my first scene, it was already chaotic as fuck—as you would imagine a Safdie movie set would be. We were filming outside on Orchard Street, in New York, and there were so many people watching and taking pictures. I’m like, “Are we going to block it? Do you want to rehearse?” Safdie runs past me with the monitor, and he’s like, “What? No, we don’t block here,” and just kept running. Honestly, I love that.”
Set in the 1950s it straddles the line of Table Tennis’s popularity. It was a time where the rest of the world had picked it up, but the States had yet to catch onto it. It may have also contributed to the pricetag of this film. A24 is generally more subdued with its films but this one is reportedly their most expensive yet, weighing in at $70 million, outpacing Alex Garland’s Civil War handily. It turns out it’s cheaper to portray America’s collapse into civil war than it is to film a guy playing ping pong in slacks.
Chalamet has gotten a reputation for spending years preparing for his roles. He spent ages becoming Bob Dylan for A Complete Unknown. Now just because he’s now playing a weedy talented New Yorker, essentially himself, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop this work ethic now. To prepare for this role Chalamet began practicing ping pong back in 2018, he did this throughout all his other projects, Dune 2, Wonka, and The French Dispatch. Ping pong is serious business.
Consider this our most anticipated film for 2026 so far.