What is Mickey 17 going to be about?

Bong Joon Ho is making a comeback with the sci-fi film Mickey 17, five years after his Oscar-winning film Parasite. It is based on the 2022 novel Mickey 7 written by Edward Ashton. It is one of the highly anticipated sci-fi films because of the concept, the director, and the star-studded cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, and Toni Collette. The film is set in the near future and highlights the themes of survival, humanity, and exploitation. The film is a social commentary on socio-economic inequalities.

The shooting of the film Mickey 17 finished in 2022 and the trailer of the film was released on September 18, 2024. The film is about an expendable worker who is assigned to do dangerous missions. Bong Joon Ho is returning to the sci-fi genre many years after Snowpiercer (2013). At CinemaCon, he explained that he changed the name of the film because of the number of times they decided to kill Mickey.

What is Mickey 17 about?

Mickey 17 follows Mickey Barnes, who signs up to be an expendable worker without reading the full application. He signed up for this job because he wanted to get away from Earth, but he later regrets it. He gets assigned to do missions that are dangerous for research purposes and in the process even if he dies, his body will get regenerated with his memory intact. He gets exploited as they assign him to one mission after another.

Things take a dangerous turn, when one day, just like the routine, Mickey is presumed dead, and his clone gets generated. However, the twist is that the other Mickey was not dead after all. A series of chaotic events take place because two Mickeys are not allowed to exist at the same time. Mark Ruffalo plays the role of Hieronymous Marshall, a dictator who announces that if there are cases of multiples, all the individuals will have to be killed off.

Warner Bros provided an official synopsis of Mickey 17 which reads- “From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, “Mickey 17.” The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.”

At CinemaCon 2024, Bong Joon Ho explains that Mickey 17 is a story about a simple man who eventually ends up saving the world. He described it as a usual type of hero’s journey. The film is a social commentary on the exploitation and discrimination of economically weaker sections of society.

When will Mickey 17 be released?

The trailer of Mickey 17, released in September 2024, revealed that the film's release date is April 18, 2025. Originally, the film was set for release on March 29, 2024, but the SAG-AFTRA strike delayed the post-production of the film. Then, the film got a new release date of January 31, 2025. Then it got further delayed to April 18, 2025, to get full access to IMAX theaters all around the world. The film will now be released over the Easter weekend, as Warner Bros.’s previous films like Godzilla vs. Kong, Clash of the Titans, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice have done big business by opening at Easter.