Not only will “Mickey 17” mark Bong Joon Ho’s return to sci-fi after stunning forays into the genre with “The Host,” “Snowpiercer” and “Okja,” “Mickey 17” will also mark the alt-pop cinema maverick’s third outing. movie. English language and also the first film distributed by a major Hollywood studio.
Adapted from Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey 7, Bong’s highly anticipated sequel to Parasite will tell the story of a human crew on a one-way expedition to the icy planet Niflheim. In their efforts to colonize and establish viable long-term living conditions in Niflheim, the crew members are often faced with missions too dangerous to provide a realistic chance of survival. This is where Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) comes in: as the team’s official expendable, he performs a job that could very well kill him, and if/when that happens, he is cloned into a new self, retaining all of his old memories.
Pattinson described the film as unlike anything he’s done before—an intriguing characteristic considering he previously starred in Claire Denis’s High Life, also an auteur space film. “The film is so crazy, it’s a completely different style of work,” the actor told ES magazine. Adding to the intrigue is the film’s all-star ensemble, which also includes Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, as well as the fact that Warner Bros. marketing appears to be positioning Bong’s new concept as a major spring blockbuster. See it in theaters March 29.