“Marty Supreme” almost surpasses “Anaconda”

A second batch of Christmas films will be released nationwide on Christmas Day in North America, including A24’s high-profile vintage pic. Marty Supreme – starring Timothée Chalamet as a 1950s table tennis champion who will do whatever it takes – and Sony’s campy Jack Black-Paul Rudd monster reboot Anaconda.

Marty Supreme made headlines last weekend with a record per location average of $145,913 across six locations in New York and Los Angeles, the best in A24 history and the best of any film since 2016. The The Earth. With a budget estimated between $60 and $70 million, it would be the most expensive film ever made by the prestigious independent studio.

Both films debuted in previews on Christmas Eve before going viral everywhere on Thursday, with Anaconda earning about $2.1 million, compared to $2.01 million for Marty Supreme. Anaconda is arguably the most commercial offering and projects a four-day Christmas weekend north of $20 million. However, the reboot was muddied by critics. Its rating on Rotten Tomatoes is currently 44 percent, compared to 95 percent for Chalamet’s film (audience results won’t be released until tonight or tomorrow).

In his criticism for THRsays chief critic David Rooney Marty Supreme reinvents sports comedy. “This is the first time since his solo debut in 2008 that Josh Safdie has directed a feature film without his brother and longtime collaborator Benny, Marty Supreme turns out, paradoxically, to be his most Sadean film to date. Powered by a hip Timothée Chalamet as a cocky operator aiming for global table tennis glory, this genre-defying original is an exhilarating sports comedy, a disjointed character study, a thrilling evocation of early ’50s New York – plus a reimagining of all those things. Think of it like Uncut gemstones encounter Catch me if you can and maybe you’re halfway there.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion and Tyler, the Creator also star in this story of an aspiring table tennis champion looking to play ping-pong to escape the Lower East Side of 1950s Manhattan.

Chalamet stopped at nothing to help market the film – culminating in becoming the first person to stand atop The Sphere in Las Vegas on December 22 – and it appears to be paying off. In the weeks leading up to the film’s release, he wrote and directed a staged Zoom call with the A24 marketing team in which he pitched increasingly ridiculous ideas for promoting Marty Supreme. One of the ideas presented became a reality: flying a bright orange rental airship with the title of the film printed on each side. While there was talk of a cross-country tour, the blimp is based in the Los Angeles area. And the idea for Safdie and the cast to light the Empire State Building orange before the New York premiere also emerged from something said during the arranged Zoom call.

The big question facing Marty Supreme is whether it can break out and play to the general public, versus the more traditional specialist audience.

And, according to Angie Han Anaconda examination for THR“An action comedy starring Jack Black, Paul Rudd and a giant CGI snake should be a lot more fun. Director Tom Gormican’s meta take on the previous one Anaconda films follows a director (Black) and his team as they travel to the Amazon to make the defining film about the legendary monster. Thandiwe Newton and Steve Zahn co-star.

Of course, the big winner of the holiday box office competition will be Avatar 3which crossed the $500 million mark on Christmas Day after topping Wednesday’s domestic chart with another $10.7 million, for a North American total of $129.2 million. Overseas, it added $11 million, for a foreign haul of $353.6 million — including $71 million from China — for a global haul of $483.3 million through Wednesday. And Disney animations Zootopia 2 is still going strong after opening on Thanksgiving, helping propel the studio past the $6 billion mark in global ticket sales for the first time since 2019, pre-pandemic.

Elsewhere in Wednesday’s national rankings, Angel Studio’s faith-based program David ranked third with $2.6 million, followed by Paramount’s The SpongeBob Movie: Finding SquarePants ($1.8 million) and Sony’s women’s thriller The cleaning lady ($1.8 million), with Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. The three films began opposite Avatar on the 19th, followed by entries on December 25.

Christmas Day falling on a Thursday is a dream scenario for theater owners, as the long holiday weekend will be free and clear. And the last two weeks of the year are the most lucrative for going to the movies, given that schools and colleges are closed and many adults aren’t working either.

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