A24’s sports dramedy Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet, did very well on Christmas Eve, almost beating Sony’s huge reboot Anaconda at the North American box office. Avatar 3 (Avatar: Fire and Ash) is still the top movie of the holiday season, having made over $500 million worldwide. However, the buzz in the industry is all about Chalamet’s breakout hit and its record-breaking platform launch.
Marty Supreme first opened in only six theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It made about $875,000 and had an amazing per-theater average of about $145,000, which was the best in A24 history and the best since La La Land.
With that momentum, the Josh Safdie-directed movie spread across the country over the Christmas season, making Chalamet’s role as a 1950s table tennis champion one of the most talked-about box office stories of the season.
In the Christmas Eve previews, Anaconda beat Marty Supreme by a small margin, with an estimated $2.1 million to $2.01 million. This small gap showed that people were more interested in the indie upstart than expected. Analysts still think Anaconda is the more obviously commercial title, but Marty Supreme’s almost equal haul, despite its niche pedigree, makes it a real holiday spoiler.
James Cameron’s “Avatar 3: Fire and Ash” was the top movie at the box office on Christmas Eve, making over $10 million. It is still the top holiday tentpole.[4]- The third movie has now made more than $500 million in ticket sales around the world, making Disney’s global box office haul even bigger and solidifying the franchise’s status as an event movie. After a record-breaking limited release, Marty Supreme is expected to make between $12 million and $20 million in North America over the long Christmas season.
