‘Marty Supreme’ Seals Timothée Chalamet’s Status as a Box Office Draw | Analysis
On Thursday, “Marty Supreme” is expected to earn a plethora of Academy Award nominations just days after becoming A24’s highest domestic grossing film ever. With $80.8 million and counting, Josh Safdie’s jagged thriller about a self-destructive young man who chases his dreams of table tennis greatness into ruin has struck an undeniable chord among a new generation of cinephiles.
And while it might not be the global smash hit of a franchise blockbuster, “Marty Supreme” has cemented the rise of its leading man, Timothée Chalamet, into a true box office draw — a status that is considered endangered even among Hollywood’s acting elite.
As Chalamet becomes a frontrunner to win his first Academy Award, it is undeniable that his performance as Marty Mauser and his commitment to promoting the film with a zeal reminiscent of his character are the primary reasons it has become part of the zeitgeist.
“This is the third-straight winter where Chalamet has had a hit film. A true star is an actor who can get audiences to see any film they’re in because of who they are,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “With ‘Wonka,’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ and now ‘Marty Supreme,’ he is different in every movie, disappearing into the role, but every time people come to see him on the big screen. He’s Mr. December.”
Chalamet’s rising popularity has been steadily building over time. After making a name for himself in movies like Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me By Your Name,” Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune,” the 30-year-old actor made a name for himself as a box office force in early 2024.
That was when his chipper 2023 Warner Bros. holiday musical “Wonka” legged out into January with $634 million at the global box office, a personal record for Chalamet that was broken just months later with another Warner film, “Dune: Part Two,” which made $715 million.
Once regarded as a nigh-unadaptable sci-fi epic, Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novel was successfully turned into a mainstream blockbuster, with Chalamet’s lead performance alongside co-star Zendaya forming the basis of the film’s marketing.
Then, at the end of 2024, Chalamet stepped into the biopic world as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” which earned a $75 million domestic total that is the highest for any film released by Searchlight Pictures since it was acquired by Disney in 2019, nearly doubling the $38.5 million of the next highest film, “The Menu.”
But even with all this success, the ceiling of Chalamet’s star power was still unclear, because Willy Wonka, Bob Dylan and even Paul Atreides are all characters who have been known for more than 60 years. Since emerging as a leading man, Chalamet had drawn critical praise for smaller dramas like “Call Me by Your Name” and “Bones and All” but had not yet spearheaded a bona fide original smash.
Enter Marty Mauser.
While based loosely on real-life table tennis hustler Marty Reisman, Chalamet’s character is a monster all his own. Critics have hailed Chalamet’s performance as an arrogant, silver-tongued hardbat ace who is fixated on his dreams of becoming a table tennis legend and doesn’t care how many friends and family he steps over to get there.
Meanwhile, the director of “Marty Supreme,” Josh Safdie, has already made his name among the younger cinephiles that make up A24’s core audience through his 2019 film “Uncut Gems,” which grossed $50 million domestically and still ranks fourth among all A24 films. Like that film, “Marty Supreme” is merciless in its tone and pacing, dragging the audience along as Marty rushes into and out of one dangerous situation after another as his life collapses due to his self-destructive behavior.
But while “Uncut Gems” lead Adam Sandler was certainly no slouch in promoting a film now regarded as his career best, Chalamet didn’t just embark on a marketing campaign that rivaled that of “Wicked,” “Barbie” or any other major blockbuster. He made “Marty Supreme” synonymous with his own personal brand as an actor.
“People’s attention spans are so short these days… How do you convince them to go to the cinema, to spend money to see a film, rather than waiting to stream it illegally, or for it to be available on Netflix?” Chalamet told The Guardian. “I have an audience, so I engage with them, and I give it 150%.”
Not long after the surprise NYFF premiere, A24 and Chalamet put their plans into motion. He sent out a post to his Instagram followers inviting anyone in New York who could make it to Times Square to see an advance screening of the film with him.
Then he sent out jackets bearing the film’s name to celebs known in their fields for being what Marty wanted to be in table tennis: The Greatest of All Time. From Tom Brady to Misty Copeland, the jackets were seen at red carpet shoots and public events and instantly became a fashion statement that thousands of cinephiles lined up to get at pop-up stores in several major cities.
On top of this and all the usual brand partnerships, which ranged from Wheaties and Airbnb to ESPN’s Christmas Day NBA broadcast, Chalamet blurred the line between character and actor, channeling the character’s cockiness in his interviews promoting the film and prompting conversations on whether the actor really was like Marty in real life.
This was only furthered when A24 released a viral video of a fake marketing meeting in which Chalamet pushes the studio’s team into doing off-the-wall marketing ideas, including flying an orange “Marty Supreme” blimp over major cities.
“This is in the spirit of Marty, and I feel like this is ultimately an original film at a time when original movies aren’t really put out,” Chalamet told IndieWire. “It’s a movie about the pursuit of a dream. I’m leaving it on the field. Whether it’s the merch or the Zoom or the media appearances, I’m trying to get this out in the biggest way possible: In the spirit of Marty Mauser.”
And with an original movie like “Marty Supreme,” Chalamet has turned back the clock with its core appeal. We’ve seen some actors take established characters and IP and make it synonymous with their brand, such as Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool. But Chalamet is taking that approach with a character no one has seen before, and as a result, the biggest reason audiences have turned out over the past month to see “Marty” is because of its leading man, the way Hollywood was until around the turn of the century.
Among original 2025 films, only two have outgrossed “Marty Supreme” domestically: Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” with $279.6 million and Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” with $151.5 million. In the former’s case, Coogler’s notoriety as the director of “Black Panther” was a major selling point, as was Michael B. Jordan’s leading man chops, while “Weapons” relied on an easy-to-convey premise like many hit original horror films both in the recent and distant past.
So what Chalamet is accomplishing is rare in today’s theatrical market, and whether he ends up winning the Oscar or not, he has proven that the star power he has built with “Wonka” and “A Complete Unknown” can carry over into other roles. And that can only mean good things for the next big film he’s got coming up: “Dune: Part Three.”
“Dunesday” Is Nigh
After the second installment of Villeneuve’s planned trilogy cleared $700 million at the box office, Warner Bros. set the final chapter for release in December 2026, putting it in prime spot for both commercial and awards success. But last year, a twist came when Marvel Studios moved in on the holiday calendar, pulling “Avengers: Doomsday” out of the MCU’s traditional summer kickoff slot and over to December.
But rather than move “Dune: Part Three” to avoid having to share Imax and other premium format screens, Warner Bros. hasn’t budged, keeping the film on the same Dec. 18 release date as “Avengers.” Not only that, Chalamet has leaned into that shared release date.
During a one-on-one “Marty Supreme” Q&A with Marvel founding father Robert Downey Jr., the pair acknowledged that “Doomsday” and “Dune 3” would release alongside each other and agreed to call the shared event “Dunesday,” perhaps hoping to recapture the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of 2023 in which millions of people around the world made plans to watch “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” as a double feature.
Perhaps a double feature of “Dune: Part Three” and “Avengers: Doomsday” is a bit too much to ask. “Dune: Part Two” had a 166-minute runtime while three of the “Avengers” films have had runtimes of around 145 minutes with “Avengers: Endgame” hitting three hours. Throw in at least 25 minutes of trailers before each film, and that’s around six hours at the movie theater to see these upcoming blockbusters back-to-back.
Still, the fact that Downey Jr. and Chalamet are using their immense clout with audiences to encourage fans to watch both increases the chances of “Dune” and “Avengers” coexisting. Even if the double feature trend doesn’t happen, perhaps moviegoers who see one on opening night may end up seeing the other during the Christmas period, as has been the case even this holiday season where frequent moviegoers who saw “Avatar: Fire and Ash” on opening night doubled back after Christmas Day to see films like “The Housemaid,” “Zootopia 2” and yes, “Marty Supreme.”
If Paul Atreides were being played by another actor, perhaps Warner Bros. considers moving “Dune 3” back to October or November or pushes it to summer 2027. But Chalamet’s performance as the Arrakis antihero alongside fellow Gen Z superstar Zendaya has already allowed “Dune” to buck the trend of sluggish box office performance for sci-fi films. After gaining even more notoriety and possibly an Oscar from “Marty Supreme,” his drawing power is strong enough to withstand even competition from what was once the undisputed king of blockbuster franchises.
And after “Dunesday,” Chalamet will reunite with “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold for another original film: Paramount’s motorcycle heist thriller “High Side.” While “Marty Supreme” is aimed at the cinephile crowd, this film is meant to be a populist thrill ride. But like “Marty,” expect Paramount to sell the film around its leading man and the chance to see him riding superbikes as a former MotoGP racer pulled into a life of crime.
In other words, Paramount, the studio that made billions from Tom Cruise’s star power in “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” will be turning to Chalamet to carry on that legacy. If that isn’t a sign of what the man now known around town as “Timmy” has built, what is?
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