It has proved incredibly hard to be online in these past few months and not have heard of Marty Supreme at least once. This is a telling sign of how influential and widespread Timothée Chalamet’s recent press run for the 2025 sports drama, loosely based on the life of an American table tennis champion, has been.
In October 2025, Chalamet posted on his Instagram story, inviting fans to watch the first 30 minutes of the film in a New York Cinema. Despite the last-minute timing and chilling temperatures of an October night in the city, all 254 seats were filled, and hundreds more gathered outside for a chance to see the star arrive, and he did, surrounded by men in large orange ping pong ball helmets. This immediately showed that this press tour was not going to be like anything the industry had seen before. From this viewing and the months following, the film’s press tour almost seemed to gather a cult following. No other film’s press tour has been as widespread, apart from the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon of summer 2023.
Many have described the 30-year-old as “serious about acting, but not much else”, and this has severely helped his press run for A24’s current attempt to sweep the upcoming awards season. Compared to the big leagues (Universal, Warner Brothers), A24 is still a relatively independent film company, best known for titles such as Midsommar (2019) and Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), the latter of which won seven Oscars, including the prestigious Best Picture award. Marty Supreme has already won Chalamet Best Actor at the 2026 Critics’ Choice Awards against stars such as Michael B. Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ethan Hawke, just to name a few. The table tennis movie is already projected to do well in the rest of the awards season.
The surprise premiere left fans wondering what the French-American actor would do next, and unsurprisingly, he gained media attention on the 17th November, when an 18-minute file titled “video93884728.mp4” was ‘leaked’ onto social media. The video, which is believed to have been scripted by Chalamet himself, consists of an online Zoom call where he pitches ideas to an advertising staff for the new film. Ideas mentioned have been viewed as ignorant and unrealistic, with some viewers not understanding the irony of the recording and deeming the actor rude and obnoxious, thanks to some comments he makes to the staff in the video.
During the call, Chalamet proposes that he wants to paint the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower ‘a very specific shade of orange’, pledging that orange would be for Marty Supreme what pink was for the 2023 Barbie movie (and in his defence, it worked, I couldn’t see anything orange without thinking of Marty Supreme in the weeks before I saw the movie.)
Whilst some might say that the Marty Supreme marketing has been aggressive, Chalamet stands by the style, commenting that nowadays “movie marketing is trying to be passive” and “chic”. Something he disagrees with, stating that he doesn’t want Marty Supreme to fit either category. It could be argued that his tone is rather egotistical, especially when he claims that the film “has to be one of the most important things to happen on earth this year” Despite the young actor’s goals, the table tennis film doesn’t rank on the worldwide box office charts for 2025, but due to its extremely late release in the year, it isn’t a fair comparison, the true insight into the popularity of this film will come through the upcoming awards season.
Alongside these publicity stunts, the Marty Supreme press tour was surrounded by merchandise such as jackets, cereal boxes and ping pong balls. Pop-up stores appeared globally, giving fans one day to buy Marty Supreme-branded clothes ranging from a $250 windbreaker jacket to a $18 keyring. These stores saw fans queuing for hours to grab a piece of the merchandise, with one film student telling British GQ he had been there since 5:30 pm the day before, resulting in being there for 17 hours. This level of commitment to a product is something only really seen for large celebrity clothes brands, something which these Marty Supreme jackets have essentially become, in my opinion, it’s less about the film and more about the link to Chalamet.
Also, much like celebrity clothing lines, the actor has made sure many other big names in other industries have one of these windbreakers. Names such as Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, Ringo Starr and even Susan Boyle have been spotted in the jackets on the run up to the release of the film. The word great has become synonymous with the movie, as it shows Marty Mauser on the “pursuit of greatness”, an aim which seems to take a large proportion of Chalamet’s life as well. Fans can even purchase a $25 box of Wheaties featuring the ping-pong player on the front, as it is the “Breakfast of Champions”. The box has historically featured only top-of-their-game athletes, with Chalamet being the first actor to work with the cereal brand. One could argue that, since he is on the box as Marty Mauser, he is an athlete, which fits the brand’s theme.
It’s safe to say that the press run for Marty Supreme will be notable in Hollywood history for years, and I believe that its box office sales will reflect and show that successful movies require successful campaigns to draw audiences into cinemas.
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