Looks like The Safdies are really into sports biopics.
Timothée Chalamet will star in Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” a sports biopic about professional ping pong player Marty Reisman, set to be produced by A24.
“Marty Supreme” is written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein. A24 is already producing Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” another sports biopic, this one about MMA fighter Mark Kerr.
“Marty Supreme” will reunite Josh with A24, which distributed his last two films, “Uncut Gems” and “Good Time. Reisman’s 1974 autobiography “The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler,” will be used as a template for the screen adaptation. Here’s Variety …
Reisman, who died in 2012, was a table tennis champion who started his career as a hustler in Manhattan, playing for bets and prize money. He won 22 major ping pong titles from 1946 to 2002 and won five bronze medals at the World Table Tennis Championships. At 67, he competed in the United States National Hardbat Championship and became the oldest player to win an open national competition in a racket sport.
The Safdies, who have officially split up, have long been rumored to helm this Ping-Pong film with Chalamet, and it looks as though It’ll now be a solo outing with just Josh directing.
Josh is also supposed to reunite with his “Uncut Gems” star, Adam Sandler, for an untitled sports card memorabilia film. According to Variety, that project is currently just “on pause”, but will eventually happen. It needs to be shot during Baseball season, which occurs between April and September. They might have to wait another year …
Too bad Josh and Benny split up. They were one of the hottest filmmakers around, especially after the seminal “Uncut Gems.” Now they’ve separated from each other, doing their own thing and who knows if these solo acts will be as creatively fruitful for them.