Is Marty Supreme based on a true story?
Timothée Chalamet's new sort-of-biopic is out later this year.
Director Josh Safdie is no stranger to real-life sports stories. In 2013 – before they had really hit the big-time – he and his brother Benny directed Lenny Cooke, a documentary film about and starring the titular basketball player.
Now, Safdie is returning to the world of sports for his first film as a solo director, but this time, it's ping-pong.
Marty Supreme stars Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a professional table tennis player, with Gwyneth Paltrow another big name in a very eclectic cast that also includes Shark Tank star and businessman Kevin O'Leary, film director Abel Ferrara and rapper Tyler, The Creator.
Chalamet is also co-producing the film, having previously done so on Bones and All and Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. But is the film based on a true story? Read on for everything you need to know ahead of its release later this year.
Is Marty Supreme based on a true story?
Partially. The film follows a character named Marty Mauser, who is loosely based on the real-life champion ping-pong player Marty Reisman – but it will not be telling a one-to-one adaptation of his life or career.
Instead, according to Deadline, Marty Supreme will be "a fictionalised original, rather than a biopic". Audiences shouldn't be expecting another Lenny Cooke – this is clearly set to be a dramatised account of Reisman's career.
Plot details are currently being kept firmly under wraps, but there is a teaser trailer, which you can watch here:
Who was the real Marty Supreme?
The real Marty Supreme (or, rather, the real Marty Mauser) was actually called Marty Reisman. Reisman was born in 1930 and died at 82 in 2012. He was a champion table tennis player whose professional career spanned over 50 years.
His career began at the age of just 12, and rumours quickly began to spread about his incredible talent – with comedian Jonathan Katz even once recalling that Reisman once beat him while using the flat end of a chess piece rather than a bat.
Throughout his career, Reisman won five bronze medals at the World Table Tennis Championships – a combination of both singles and doubles medals – while he won a total 22 major table tennis titles including two US Opens and a British Open.
He remained active in the sport long into his life, and was serving as president of Table Tennis Nation at the time of his death.
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To put his longevity into perspective: on the film's release date, Timothée Chalamet will be 29 - only half the number of years between Reisman's first and final major table tennis awards, in 1946 and 2002 respectively.
Reisman published a memoir in 1974 titled The Money Player, The Confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Player and Hustler. And although it's nearly impossible to track down a copy today, it's possible that this served as an inspiration for Marty Supreme.
Marty Supreme releases in cinemas on Christmas Day 2025.
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