“Hardcore orange. Corroded orange. Falling apart orange. Rusted orange.” This orange has been on red carpets, in theaters, and in the sky, all thanks to Timothée Chalamet’s master marketing plan.
“Marty Supreme,” which Chalamet co-produced and starred in, is a sports dramedy that follows Marty Mauser, “a young man with a dream no one respects:” a dream of ping-pong greatness.
The marketing campaign leading up to the Christmas day release of the movie was inescapable, from trendy “Marty Supreme” sports jackets to bright orange blimps filling the sky. This overwhelming amount of hype for a movie about ping pong paid off — the film rapidly became one of A24’s highest earners, with a studio record-breaking opening, and was nominated for three Golden Globes awards and eight Critics Choice Awards, one of which Chalamet won for Best Actor.
There’s been a wealth of celebrity endorsements, from athletes like Stephen Curry and Tom Brady. It’s seemingly driven by starpower, but also by fun, with Chalamet actively denouncing the notion that movie marketing should be chic. The prior “Wicked” and “Barbie” campaigns also pushed the norm for movie marketing, collaborating with seemingly every brand to push out merchandise, creating what seems to be a new norm.
The film didn’t depend on the marketing, however. Viewers like Berkeley High School senior Nishant Verma went in with only the vague knowledge that “Marty Supreme” would be a sports movie, and loved it. “I really liked the movie. I didn’t have a specific favorite part, but my least favorite part was when Marty decided to go to Japan while his ‘girlfriend’ was in surgery/giving birth. I thought it was a crazy choice to make and really showed where his priorities were,” Verma said.
BHS sophomore Lukas Alkdal, a six-time viewer of the film, said, “I think that because the movie is centered around a less popular sport, that helped amplify the underdog story even more. I think if he played a more well known sport it wouldn’t have been as good.”
When talking about the main character Mauser, Alkdal noted that “he is definitely an anti-hero type of protagonist. He makes a lot of bad decisions, and he is pretty arrogant, but he does everything in the pursuit of greatness so you can’t help but root for him.”
Alkdal admitted that “the movie felt a little less motivational than the marketing suggested it would be. I think because throughout the movie he makes a lot of rash decisions that impact people around him, and those decisions build up throughout the movie. However, if you look at how determined he is at achieving his dreams, I think that it was motivational.”
What resonates with the audience is just that — a success story. “Dream Big,” the film’s slogan, has rallied fans, and many have taken Mauser’s fictional story to be a motivational one.