Promotion for Bong Joon-ho’s latest film, Mickey 17, has kicked off with Robert Pattinson in tow, ahead of its premiere in South Korea next week. Then it plays the Berlin Film Festival in February, before opening everywhere else in March and April (it opens in North American on March 7 and in the UK and Ireland on April 18). A new trailer was released and yep, I am still VERY seated for Bong’s brand of future social disfunction and whatever weird sh-t RPattz wants to do on screen (and in life, stay weird, guy!).
This is, of course, the film that Bong wrangled over with Warner Bros. Discovery and its wanna-be Bond villain CEO, David Zaslav. Bong later clarified that he contractually had final cut on the film, but that doesn’t really take away from the rumors that WBD execs weren’t best pleased with the film and wanted a more “accessible” cut. It just means they couldn’t FORCE him to make that “accessible” cut, which he didn’t. Instead the film hopscotched on the schedule, ultimately settling on an early spring release plan (after initially giving the film an unpalpable January date).
I’m not going to lie, I am rooting HARD for this film. I hope it’s a bigger hit than anticipated. I hope audiences eat it up. I hope Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 and all the other Mickeys are an irresistible screen duo and Mickey 17 gets the 2025 box office season off to a strong start. Partly because after the otherwise poor start to 2025 Hollywood could use the boost, but also because it would just be funny if the movie Warners tried to minimize ends up being a maximized hit.
Here's Rob at Dior today in Paris.
