Bong Joon-Ho's Mickey 17 looks like a darkly comic sci-fi blast

Bong Joon-Ho is one of the most exciting film directors working today. He's responsible for Shortlist's best film of the decade, Parasite, and Warner Bros. Pictures just dropped a trailer for his next flick.

Mickey 17 is a darkly comic sci-fi movie where people can sign up to be “expendables” who are sent on dangerous jobs, with a high likelihood of death. But if they die, a replacement version of them is simply bio-3D-printed out.

Robert Pattinson starts as Mickey, and the 17 of the title refers to the focus being on the seventeenth version of this particular expendable.

We’re hoping this won’t turn out to be too much of a spoiler, but the trailer introduces the issue of multiples. This is where another version of Mickey, or another expendable, gets printed out before the last one dies.

Mickey 17 looks like it could be an absolute blast, and is due in cinemas on January 31, 2025. Have a look at the trailer:

The trailer also introduces us to some other members of the starry cast.

We see Mark Ruffalo as high-ranking official Hieronymus Marshall, Toni Collette, Steven Yuen and Naomi Ackie.

This is Bong Joon-Ho’s first film since 2019’s Parasite, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 2020. It was the first non-English-language film to win the accolade.

Mickey 17 is also Bong Joon-Ho’s biggest budget movie to date, by quite some margin.

Parasite was made for just $11.4 million, while his most expensive film to date is 2017’s Okja, with a reported $50 million production budget.

Warner Bros. Pictures calls Mickey 17 a “groundbreaking cinematic experience,” and it will have a release to match. It’s coming to IMAX cinemas as well as regular ones. We’re far off a streamer-only release here, folks.

Mickey 17 has been in the works for some time. A first-look video teaser was released in late 2022, and the film was reportedly originally scheduled for a release in March 2024.

It is based on a novel by Edward Ashton, Mickey7. Whether or not the film is as mammoth a hit as Parasite, Ashton can expect to see his literary career given an almighty boost by this one.

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