Marty Supreme and The Smashing Machine: The Safdie brothers are in a sports drama face-off

The very first movie the Safdie brothers made together, The Pleasure of Being Robbed, it was Josh in the director’s chair. Benny just did the editing.

The next three they directed together, and by 2017, when Good Time was released and was hailed as a tour de force panic attack and, at that point, the best performance of Robert Pattinson’s career, they were known not separately by their first names.

Josh and Benny Safdie became just the Safdie brothers. Just like the Coen brothers, the Russo brothers, the Duffer brothers, and the Wachowski siblings.

The Adam Sandler heist thriller Uncut Gems followed Good Time, and the pair had carved out a tone that was anxiety-fuelled, raucous and with a magnetic pull that meant you dared not look away.

Everyone wanted to work with the Safdie brothers.

Then something unexpected happened. For their next project, the Safdies split up, and now find themselves faced off against each other, releasing at the same time a sports drama with an A-list star.

For Josh, that’s Marty Supreme, which dropped its first trailer overnight.

The film stars Timothee Chalamet as aspiring ping pong champion Marty Mauser, based on the real-life Marty Reisman who died in 2012.

The trailer suggested Marty Supreme will not be your typical sports drama, even though it has the requisite underdog element – in this case, a sport Americans don’t take seriously – and a big, charismatic personality determined to prove everyone wrong.

The character says in the video, “I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m telling you, this game, it fills stadiums overseas, and it’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box.”

It also features a subplot in which Marty tries to entangle himself with a movie star, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Their co-stars include Odessa A’zion, Fran Descher and Penn Jillette. Josh wrote the film with Ronald Bronstein.

Marty Supreme follows Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. He is currently filming the third Dune movie.

Reisman was the US championship in 1958 and 1960, and won bronzes at the world championships five times.

The film is due out at the end of year, two months after the release of The Smashing Machine, which is Benny’s new film.

That movie will have its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it is in the official competition, in two weeks with an Australian release slated for October 2.

Starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, The Smashing Machine is a biographical film about wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, who was a two-time UFC heavyweight champion.

The Smashing Machine was also his stage name in the ring. Kerr was one of the earlier personalities in the UFC, and the film will chart his rise as well as his personal and professional relationships and his battles with substance abuse.

Johnson, who is also a producer on the film, has attracted the words usually not associated with him – “it has Oscars buzz”.

Kerr had previously been the subject of a 2002 HBO documentary of the same name.