What do you do after you’ve won the Oscar for Best Picture? If you’re Bong Joon-ho, you get right back to work to make another banger, and choose to make it potentially weirder and more studded with Hollywood stars than anything you’ve made before. The first full trailer for Bong’s “Parasite” follow-up “Mickey 17” is finally here, and his adaptation of Edward Ashton’s trippy sci-fi novel, “Mickey7,” looks great — darkly funny, unnerving, and, yes, trippy.
The first sneak peek of the new movie came over a year ago, in December 2022. At that point, “Mickey 17” was due to hit theaters by early 2024, but it was subsequently delayed by what The Hollywood Reporter previously referred to “post-strike production shifts,” which no doubt gave the movie’s team more time to make it as sharp and cinematic as possible in post-production.
“Mickey7” and Bong’s new movie both follow the life of an “expendable,” a man designed to be regenerated with a new body and his old memories each time he dies. In the case of Robert Pattinson’s Mickey, he’s died 16 times while attempting to colonize a frozen planet, although the footage from the film screened at CinemaCon earlier this year revealed that the movie features two Mickey variations — 17 and 18 — attempting to pretend to be one guy since expendable multiples aren’t allowed to coexist in this world. The film also stars Steven Yeun (inhabiting the same weirdly funny space as he did in Bong’s “Okja”), Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and “Blink Twice” star Naomie Ackie.
Mickey 17 looks like bonkers fun
Not to sound hyperbolic here, but this might be one of the best trailers we’ve seen in a hot minute. In no universe could we have possibly predicted that Robert Pattinson would be putting on that voice as Mickey and his many multiples, but we sure aren’t complaining! His voiceover paired with “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin and Nelson Riddle is giving “Goodfellas” vibes, but if “Goodfellas” also included Steven Yeun with a cool mustache. We know better than to doubt Bong Joon-ho’s creative vision, but we have to admit … this trailer is exceeding all of our expectations. A science-fiction film featuring the continued incineration of Robert Pattinson clones (and the threat of being eaten by snow beasts) and a tough-as-nails Toni Collette in a power suit? Sign us up!
As delightful as the trailer is (shout out to Naomi Ackie saying “It’s so exciting!” while pinching the cheeks of two Robert Pattinsons), there’s no doubt that Bong Joon-ho is going to find a way to sneak in some serious existential drama between space chaos and funny clone business. The real shame here is seeing such an incredible trailer and knowing we will have to wait in agony for months until we’ll finally get to put this in our eyeballs, but “Mickey 17” certainly shot up to a lot of folks’ most anticipated release of 2025 list.
We look forward to hooting and hollering when “Mickey 17” hits theaters on January 31, 2025.
