Marty Supreme’s Scrapped Finale Would Have Transformed Timothee Chalamet Into a Vampire

So, 'Marty Supreme' almost ended with a wild twist straight out of left field. For anyone who's already seen the Timothée Chalamet ping-pong dramedy, you probably thought the finale was pretty bleak. But believe it or not, the filmmakers were actually considering something way, way weirder: turning it into a full-on vampire movie in the last scene. Yeah, for real.

What Could Have Been: The Vampire Ending

Josh Safdie, the movie's director, opened up about his original plan during a chat with Sean Baker on the A24 podcast. According to him, there was a version where Marty (Chalamet) gets bitten by a vampire. Not just any vampire, either—the plan was for Kevin O'Leary, of all people, to play the neck-biter. If that name sounds familiar, it's probably because you know him as 'Mr. Wonderful' from Shark Tank.

Safdie explained they actually built a prosthetic for Chalamet and made dental molds for O'Leary's vampire fangs. Here’s the basic gist that Safdie described:

'You’re on his eyes, we built the prosthetic for Timmy and everything, and Mr. Wonderful shows up behind him and takes a bite out of his neck, and that was the last thing in the movie.'

The vampire twist would’ve doubled as an over-the-top homage to the '80s era of fang-filled movies like 'The Lost Boys' and 'The Hunger.' Honestly, that would’ve been a sequence to remember. But, somewhere along the development process, that bonkers ending got the axe in favor of something a lot more grounded.

Kevin O'Leary Wanted to Go Even Darker

Here’s where things get even more surprising: O’Leary apparently felt that Safdie’s actual ending wasn’t nearly brutal enough for Marty. In case you need a refresher, O’Leary plays Milton Rockwell, Marty’s nemesis in the film. The finished movie already has Marty’s relationships torched and his ping-pong legacy more or less in ashes, but that just wasn’t cutting it, at least for O’Leary.

O'Leary pitched the idea that if you really want consequences for Marty, you should go nuclear—his family needed to pay a price, too. He reportedly argued that Marty's wife, Rachel, should actually die during childbirth, saying:

'Rachel has to die. She has to die in childbirth [...] I know that sounds nuts, but to me that would be the right punishment.'

(And yeah, I agree with him on the 'sounds nuts' part.)

The Speech, the Fangs, and What We Got

O'Leary's character already gets a pretty dramatic monologue that’s so pointed and off-kilter, you have to wonder if he was half in-character, half doing his typical Shark Tank tough-love thing. Adding actual vampire fangs and a midnight ambush would’ve sent the movie fully off the rails (in a good way? hard to say).

In the end, they left the supernatural element on the cutting-room floor. So, while 'Marty Supreme' remains a gritty slice of retro sports tragedy with some over-the-top personalities thrown in, know that somewhere out there, there’s a version where Chalamet gets drained by an angry Shark Tank judge and absolutely nobody walks out happy.

Quick Recap: What Almost Happened

• Original plan: ending with Timothée Chalamet’s Marty bitten on the neck by Kevin O’Leary (Mr. Wonderful) as a literal vampire.
• Full prosthetics and vampire fangs were made for the scene but scrapped during production.
• O’Leary, never one for subtlety, pitched an even harsher fate: Marty’s wife dies in childbirth. (The filmmakers, wisely, didn’t take that suggestion.)
• The end result: Marty loses everything, but walks away with a shot at redemption through fatherhood—no supernatural bloodsucking required.

'Marty Supreme' is still in theaters in the US, so if you want to see what made the final cut (and imagine how much weirder it could have been), now’s your chance.