Timothée Chalamet-led Ping-Pong Movie Breaks $70M A24 Record

Already having got all the hullabaloo over his power-packed cast, interesting premise and breaking of an unheard-of budget record, the most recent project by Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme is set to leave a new milestone for the indie studio A24, as the $70 million mark hints it to break all their previous movie budget records. The film is A24's costliest production so far, overtaking the reported $90 million budget of Dwayne Johnson-starrer The Smashing Machine, which is incidentally helmed by Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie's brother.

Based on the life of ping pong legend Marty Reisman in the 1950s, whose playing style is quite out of the ordinary and did transform the sport, Marty Supreme is a drama and biographical sports film merged into a tale of aspirations and competition and personal victory as the always-incisive Chalamet plays the titular character with characteristic intensity and nuance. The movie features another great ensemble cast with Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, Odessa A'Zion, Penn Jillette, and Fran Drescher.

A budget of $70 million marks a far cry from more typical, though small, budgets linked with A24 films-which tend to have indie sensibilities and artistic storytelling in terms of several of their properties. While Marty Supreme and The Smashing Machine have respectively urged A24 to increase its scales in productions, the studio is all set to make bigger and more ambitious ones in the later stages.

As the film draws near its release, many are getting anxious to know how this high-end indie would play out. Chalame teamed up with Safdie on a rare combination of drama and high-stakes storytelling-potential promis of the filmmaking duo behind Good Time and Uncut Gems. From the history that inspired it to the star power behind it, Marty Supreme is also generating much buzz around Chalamet because he just keeps cementing his self-made place as one of the most sought-after young actors in Hollywood.

At a time when indie and mainstream cinema blur lines created long ago, it is evident that Marty Supreme represents a deep commitment by A24 to strong risks. This film promises to be quite impactful as it stretches limits further in the world of independent filmmaking, equally in dollars and inches. As if taking literally or figuratively steps up to even bigger projects, A24's foray into larger-scale productions is most aptly designed to redefine the indie film landscape over the coming years.