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

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

by Alex Billington
September 9, 2025
Source: YouTube

“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 original 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.

Here’s the second trailer (+ poster) for Benny Safdie’s film The Smashing Machine, from YouTube:

You can rewatch the first trailer for Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine right here for more footage.

The film tells the story of Mark Kerr (starring Dwayne Johnson), a legendary MMA fighter from the no-holds-barred era of the UFC, as he grapples with personal demons and the pressures of his career at its peak. Alongside him, Dawn (Emily Blunt), Kerr’s girlfriend, struggles to find her place in the turbulence and contradictions of Mark’s world. The Smashing Machine is written and directed by acclaimed American actor / writer / producer / filmmaker Benny Safdie, one half of the Safdie Brothers duo (also with Josh), making his first feature film solo as a director on his own. He also co-directed, with Josh, the films Daddy Longlegs, Lenny Cooke, Heaven Knows What, Good Time, and Uncut Gems previously, along with a few other shorts. With consulting on the script from the real Mark Kerr. It’s produced by Eli Bush, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, Dwayne Johnson, David Koplan, and Benny Safdie. This premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival. A24 releases Safdie’s The Smashing Machine in US theaters starting October 3rd, 2025 this fall.

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