TimothéeChalamet has found his next project, as he will team with Josh Safdie on a movie that not many people would have anticipated: a fictionalized sports film that draws from real-life events. Hot off of the box office winning streak of Wonka and Dune: Part Two, Chalamet has cemented himself as a bonafide movie star, and while he expected to return for Dune: Messiah, his next film will come sooner than expected. He is set to team up with Josh Safdie, one half of the Safdie Brothers, on a film about table tennis.
According to Variety, Chalamet will star in Marty Supreme, which will be directed by Josh Safdie and produced by A24. The movie will be fictional but heavily inspired by professional ping pong player Marty Reisman, who went from hustler to world champion after winning 22 major ping pong titles from 1946 to 2002 before passing away in 2012. Marty Supreme will be written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, who wrote the Safdie Brother’s Uncut Gems, with Eli Bush and Anthony Katagas producing and with Josh Safdie. No release date has been set, but A24 confirmed the film with a teaser poster on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, which can be seen below.
The Safdie Brothers’ Solo Projects
Marty Supreme will mark the first film in which director Josh Safdie is a solo director since 2008’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed. It is also his first film since 2019’s Uncut Gems, which he directed alongside his brother Benny Safdie. The directing duo announced in January 2024 that they would be splitting up creatively to work on solo projects. Initially, the duo were set to direct a movie with their Uncut Gems star Adam Sandler that would be centered around sports memorabilia and baseball. However, that project has since been delayed.
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What is interesting is that both brothers are working on sports-related films. While Josh Safdie is directing the ping-pong-centric Marty Supreme, Benny Safdie is directing The Smashing Machine, which will star Dwayne Johnson in a biopic of former wrestler and mixed martial artist Mark Kerr. A24 will distribute both Marty Supreme and The Smashing Machine.
Chalamet is next set to star in A Complete Unknown by director James Mangold. Chalamet will star as Bob Dylan, and the movie will center around the 1965 controversy where Dylan switched to electric guitar and instruments following his success as one of the most famous acoustic guitar players in the world. While no release date is set for Marty Supreme, pairing together one of the biggest actors in the world with one of the most exciting and critically acclaimed directors working today will certainly be enough to get Marty Supreme some strong buzz from general audiences.