We could finally be done with the stale Hollywood marketing cycle of Jimmy Kimmel appearances, sleepy podcast circuits, and forced red carpet smiles.
What happened: The highly anticipated ping-pong dramedy Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet, cracked the top 10 box office list after a limited release in just six theatres. The screenings brought in US$875,000, which marked the highest sales per theatre of any flick this year.
For comparison, Disney’s new release, Ella McCay, brought in just over half of that in the same weekend, despite being on 2,500 theatre screens.
Why it’s happening: For anyone who has followed the Marty Supreme marketing tour, this probably isn’t a surprise. Since October, Chalamet has teased the movie with viral posts of celebrities (including Bill Nye) wearing the official Marty Supreme windbreaker, which one GQ writer dubbed the “definitive garment of 2025.”
The marketing blitz has included a branded blimp, a $25 Wheaties Marty Supreme cereal box, and even a Timothée Chalamet verse on U.K. rapper EsDeeKid’s song (a masked artist who people long speculated was actually Chalamet himself).
Just yesterday, Chalamet made an appearance standing on top of the Las Vegas sphere, which was, of course, lit up as an orange Marty Supreme ping pong ball.
Why it matters: These internet-first tactics have created an unimaginable amount of hype for an Indie ping pong biopic that, on paper, shouldn’t be a box-office draw. For an industry still struggling to get people into theatres for anything that’s not a Marvel movie, the Marty Supreme marketing playbook should become required reading.