Benny Safdie’s ‘Smashing Machine’ Trailer #2 with Johnson & Blunt

“To see Mark back out there is truly remarkable.” A24 has unveiled a second trailer for The Smashing Machine, from director Benny Safdie, one half of iconic filmmaker duo the Safdie Brothers. This time it’s just Benny’s project alone, he wrote & directed this without his brother Josh. It just premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Director, and is playing at TIFF now before opening in October in theaters. In The Smashing Machine, the story is focused on the “trailblazing UFC, PRIDE, and VFC fighter” Mark Kerr during the peak of his career in 2000. Detailing the good, the bad, and the ugly of his rise to the top of the sport. MMA fighter Mark Kerr struggles with addiction, winning, and love during his peak in the UFC. Starring Dwayne Johnson with impressive facial prosthetics in a powerful lead role as Kerr. With Emily Blunt as his girlfriend, and featuring Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, Ryan Bader, Satoshi Ishii; plus Bas Rutten and Stephen Quadros as themselves. Featuring authentic matches. I caught this in Venice already and it’s solid, though Johnson & Blunt are the only real standouts. The rest of the film is a pretty generic version of yet another tough guy battling demons while fighting in the ring story. Check it out. // Continue Reading ›