Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” Starring Robert Pattinson Arriving Early in South Korea
Oscar-winning Bong Joon Ho’s first movie since his masterful Parasite will be coming to his home country a few days early.
Warner Bros will be releasing Mickey 17, starring Robert Pattinson, in South Korea on January 28, 2025, timed to the Lunar New Year Holiday. This is three days earlier than its global release on January 31. It’s a fitting choice for its world premiere location, considering Bong is one of South Korea’s most beloved filmmakers.
“Director Bong’s creativity, vision, and imagination always exceed expectations. Mickey 17 will surprise audiences with its original story and characters, unpredictable plot development and humor, as well as great production qualities,” Warners president of international distribution Andrew Cripps said in a statement.
Delayed due to the dual strikes, we’ve already gotten a brief, tantalizing sneak peek—way back in December of 2022. Mickey 17 returns Bong to the sci-fi genre in which he’s made some of his most ambitious films, from 2006’s The Host to 2013’s Snowpiercer and his 2017 Netflix film Okja.
The film is based on the novel “Mickey7” by writer Edward Ashton, published in February of 2022, about the titular protagonist who works as a “disposable employee” on a dangerous mission. In Ashton’s novel, Mickey7 works on a human expedition setting out to colonize the frozen planet of Niflheim, and his role is to step in on any mission deemed too dangerous or borderline suicidal for a human being and sacrifice his body for the cause. The genius of the “disposable employee” design is that while they can regenerate an entirely new body, most of their memories will remain intact. That is, until after six deaths when a replacement clone takes over. The key inflection point in Ashton’s book is when Mickey7 refuses to let Mickey8 take over his job.
Pattison is joined by Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. How closely Bong has stuck to the details of Ashton’s novel is unclear (he changed Mickey’s number, for starters), but there is no question the immensely talented director has created something unique. It’s easily one of the most eagerly-anticipated films of 2025.
Check out the teaser below.
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Featured image: Robert Pattinson stars in Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
