All hail the transcontinental marketing skills of Timothée Chalamet.
The star’s wild press tour for “Marty Supreme” has already been praised for helping A24 land its second biggest debut on home soil, with $27 million earned over the four-day Christmas weekend. But his unconventional promotional escapades have also seen Josh Safdie’s acclaimed ping-pong dramedy smash records for the studio across the Atlantic, where in the U.K. it has now become its highest-grossing release of all time.
According to sources close to the project, late on Monday Jan. 5, the film surpassed “Civil War” — A24’s previous title-holder which took $8.2 million in 2024 — to claim its British crown. The achievement is even more impressive given that “Marty Supreme” managed this in less than two full weeks, having launched on Dec. 26, and with only one of those as a wide release. In its first weekend in approximately 130 locations, it took an astonishing $4.38 million (another A24 record).
“Marty Supreme” (which in the U.K. was distributed by regular A24 partners Entertainment Film Distributors) has now outgrossed the entire British box office of fellow sports feature “Challengers” ($8.1 million) while its wide break was higher than than the opening weekend of awards season rival “One Battle After Another” ($3.3 million). While the general industry approximation for films released in the U.K. is that they take roughly 10% of the domestic box office, Variety understands “Marty Supreme” will likely comfortably exceed this.
Safdie’s film — a screwball sports-crime thriller loosely based on the life and career of U.S. table tennis player Marty Reisman — has received just as much praise in the U.K. as in the U.S., sitting atop many critics 2025 best of lists and with six pending nominations from the London Critics Circle. But several A24 films have had similar reactions. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” also earned six London Critics nominations, plus 10 BAFTA nods (winning one), but earned a total of $7.6 million at the U.K. box office. “Hereditary,” meanwhile, amassed $7.3 million.
The U.K. success of “Marty Supreme,” therefore, can fire an orange ping pong ball of gratitude to the one-man marketing machine that is Chalamet, who brought his unique promotional style to London in mid-December with the same viral effect it had in the U.S.
On Dec. 13, thousands of Chalamet fans, mostly teens and 20-somethings – and prompted by a cryptic social media post from the actor the day before — flocked to a pop-up store in Holborn to try to get their hands on various fashion branded items, including the iconic “Marty Supreme” orange jacket that has become this season’s merch product du jour. Many travelled to British capital from around the U.K. Some camped overnight (through extreme wintery chills). According to reports, there were fights in the snake-like queue that formed.
There was also the ongoing speculation that Chalamet was leading a double life as the cult masked Brit rapper and drill artist EsDeeKid. While in the U.K., he quashed those rumors — already far-fetched given EsDeeKid’s Liverpudlian accent — by posting a video of himself rapping alongside the musician to a remix of his hit “4Raws.” Naturally, it went crazy on social media, helped by many U.K. rappers who cheered both the track and video.
But perhaps the most out there moment, one that perhaps chimed with the U.K.’s taste for the offbeat and wacky, was when Chalamet praised former Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle.
Scottish singer Boyle — who became a YouTube sensation in 2009 for her rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” — was one of a small handful of Brits with enough cultural iconicity to be deemed worthy of a “Marty Supreme” jacket, named alongside Lewis Hamilton, David and Victoria Beckham and rapper Fakemink.
“She dreamt bigger than all of us,” Chalamet told the BBC, adding that he remembered her 2009 moment “like it was yesterday.”
Chalamet was just 13 at the time and it’s anyone’s guess whether he was being honest about his appreciation for Boyle (who later sent him a message to wish him him a happy 30th birthday). But given A24’s record-breaking U.K. haul for “Marty Supreme” and a hugely positive start to the year in terms of original theatrical releases, few in the cinema industry are likely complaining.
