You'll Have to Wait Till 2025 to See Bong Joon-ho's New Robert Pattinson-Starring Sci-Fi Film 'Mickey 17'

Thanks to everything that the last few years have served up, 2019 seems like a lifetime ago. So, waiting for anything since that innocent pre-pandemic time feels like waiting forever. On the top of the list: the next movie by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, after Parasite became the film of 2019. It won almost everything that it could, such as the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the Sydney Film Festival Prize and four Oscars. Thanks to the latter, it became the first film in a language other than English to win Best Picture.

The acclaimed filmmaker's next feature is Mickey 17, and it's been in the works for a while. It even dropped an initial teaser trailer at the end of 2022. Back then, the Robert Pattinson (The Batman)-starring flick was targeting a March 2024 release date. Now, however, it won't be hitting the big screen until 2025.

Earlier in 2024, Warner Bros took the film off its slate for the year, but it's only now that it has been given a firm new date with picture palaces, as per The Hollywood Reporter. In the US, it will release on Friday, January 31, 2025 — so if Australia and New Zealand get it day-and-date with America, it'll arrive here on Thursday, January 30.

Of course, any new Bong Joon-ho movie is biding your time for, as his impressive cinematic resume attests. He's also the filmmaker behind stunning crime procedural Memories of Murder, creature feature The Host, dystopian thriller Snowpiercer and the offbeat Okja, after all. And on his new feature, at least as far as the first sneak peek makes plain, he's embracing sci-fi intrigue.

The Batman

Directed, scripted and produced by Bong, Mickey 17 looks set to mark his third movie mostly in English after Snowpiercer and Okja, with Pattinson leading a cast that also includes Steven Yeun (Beef), Naomi Ackie (Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody), Toni Collette (Mafia Mamma) and Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things).

Story-wise, it adapts Edward Ashton's book Mickey 7 — and no, why the title has added ten to its number isn't revealed in the debut trailer. The novel follows an 'expendable' being sent to colonise an ice world, who doesn't want to let his replacement take his place. On the page, the lead character is the seventh clone trying to fend off the eighth, but Bong has clearly upped that to the 17th version of his lead character.

High Life

Science-fiction fans will spot that the premise alone gives off big Moon, Sunshine and Voyagers vibes — and brings High Life, RPatz's last exceptional sci-fi flick, to mind. That said, Bong isn't a filmmaker to follow in anyone else's footsteps. How he makes this concept his own will be a treat to see.

Mickey 17 will be a return for Pattinson, too, given that he hasn't been seen on-screen since his debut turn as Bruce Wayne — although he could be heard in the English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, adding a movie by another iconic director to his filmography.

Check out the first trailer for Mickey 17 below:

Mickey 17 now has a Friday, January 31, 2025 release date in the US — we'll update you with local details when they're announced.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.