If there is one director that should be a no-brainer to trust with any project after a major victory, it would have to be Bong Joon-ho. Growing to fame in South Korea with his films “Memories of Murder,” “The Host” and “Mother,” before eventually branching out to American audiences with “Snowpiercer” and “Okja.” His 2019 magnum opus, “Parasite,” garnered near universal acclaim and shattered history as the first ever non-English film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
After such a monumental feat, it was obvious that Bong would be given near total creative freedom with his next project, which happened to be an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 science-fiction novel “Mickey 7.” The film, retitled to “Mickey 17,” follows Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, a down-on-his-luck man who joins an expedition to the treacherous frozen wasteland of Niflheim as an “Expendable.” As an “Expendable,” his job is quite literally to be killed in every possible way for the sake of helping the colony advance to greatness, and to colonize Niflheim and annihilate its violent native species known as “creepers.” But when Mickey returns to the colony after being presumed dead on a mission, he finds that they have already produced the next version of him, “Mickey 18,” leading to the two, alongside Mickey’s close friend and flame Nasha Barridge (Naomi Ackie), having to find a way to resolve the crisis before they are all killed.
All in all, “Mickey 17” is an incredibly weird and utterly bonkers experience, and while plenty will walk away hating it, I absolutely adored every minute of the ride. The wildly absurd story is helped by a litany of standout performances, with Pattinson obviously a major standout several times over as Mickey, effortlessly going from desperate and humble to awkward and nerdy to bloodthirsty and resentful with each passing version of him. Ackie gives great depth to Nasha throughout and works wonders with her chemistry with Pattinson. Steven Yeun and Toni Collette are great as Mickey’s shady pilot buddy Timo and the manipulative and sinister Ylfa Marshall, respectively. Mark Ruffalo is the real star of the show as Kenneth Marshall, perfectly playing a shallow, performative and hilariously inept and selfish politician.
Darius Khondji’s cinematography is top-notch and stunning to look at throughout and Jung Jae-il’s score is a blend of entrancing, uneasy and almost fancy, sticking out throughout most of the runtime. The film’s pacing is great and never feels too slow, and the writing and directing from Bong himself are up to par with his previous works. As a whole, “Mickey 17” is a wonderful film and another fine addition to this auteur’s filmography, but the one thing that stands out the most about the film is not even anything in the film itself. Rather, it is the journey it took to make it to theaters in the first place and the absolute torment it went through from the studio that made it.
“Mickey 17” was first announced in early 2022, with none other than Warner Bros. helping to distribute the film, which would be directed, written and produced by Bong with Pattinson in talks to star. The rest of the cast was announced later that year, and production took place at Warner’s Leavesden studio in East England from Aug. 2022 to Jan. 2023, with a brief teaser released a month earlier announcing the film and its scheduled release date of March 29, 2024.
As you can plainly see, it did not release on March 29, 2024. While production was underway for “Mickey 17,” Warner Brothers found themselves in the crosshairs of the public for writing off and canceling countless projects that were either already released on MAX (then called HBO Max) or were awaiting release via either streaming or theatrically, most notoriously with the nearly completed “Batgirl” film for DC and the live-action/CGI hybrid Looney Tunes film “Coyote vs. ACME.” This, paired with reports of test screenings that resulted in negative reactions to Bong’s own vision, caused Warner and main studio lead David Zaslav to panic, and while they could not get away with writing off a project from an Oscar-winning auteur, they did try to make the release of the film as big a disaster as they could.
Not only did Warner Bros. make their own edit of the film, which conflicted with Bong’s and led to conflict between the two that ended with Bong receiving final cut over the film, but when they seemed to relent and allow Bong to present his vision to audiences, the studio proceeded to delay it several times in turn, delaying it by nearly a year from March 29 to Jan. 31, 2025 due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. They then delayed it again by a few months to April 18 before finally switching it with Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” to its final release date of March 7, 2025.
It really is a sad state to see how little faith Warner Bros. had in Bong and “Mickey 17,” especially with how good the film turned out to be in the end. A truly unique film like this from an exceptional creator deserved far more attention and respect from such a major studio, and paired with their dicey history with similar projects, it really should not be a surprise from them at this point. While not particularly telling of the film’s quality, the film’s lackluster box office take and already hitting digital definitely helps to show the stage original blockbusters are in nowadays.
