Bong Joon-Ho’s highly anticipated sci-fi movie Mickey 17 will be his first movie since 2019’s critically acclaimed Parasite. The Academy Award-winning director of Parasite is also the renowned writer/director of several other outstanding films such as Memories of Murder (2003), Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), and Okja (2017), which makes his upcoming adaptation of Mickey 17 even more exciting. Bong Joon-Ho is set to both write and direct the sci-fi adventure film which is expected to release on March 29, 2024.
Mickey 17 is based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 written by Edward Ashton. While the plot of Bong Joon-Ho’s film still remains tightly under wraps, the novel follows the story of a futuristic type of human known as an Expendable named Mickey who is essentially a disposable colonizer sent to a seemingly inhabitable ice planet called Niflheim. Mickey is able to regenerate his body after death with a brand new but virtually identical version of himself with nearly all of his memories intact.
Mickey 17 Is Finally A New Bong Joon-Ho Movie, 5 Years After Parasite
Based on its premise alone, Mickey 17 sounds more like an upcoming Villeneuve or Ridley Scott project than a Bong Joon-Ho film and will mark the director’s first true venture into the world of science fiction. The film has an extraordinary cast led by Robert Pattinson, who will presumably play Mickey, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, and Steven Yeun. The March 29, 2024 theatrical release of Mickey 17 will create an unexpected sci-fi spring showdown between Bong Joon-Ho’s film and Villeneuve’s rescheduled Dune: Part Two, which is set to release on March 15, 2024.
Parasite dominated in several of the major categories at the 2020 Academy Awards, taking home the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature Film, and Best Original Screenplay. Joon-Ho’s follow-up to his incredibly successful Parasite will inevitably face scrutiny and comparisons which might be somewhat alleviated due to the five-year difference between it and Mickey 17. The film began production in August 2022 and finished filming in December of that year, meaning that Joon-Ho has had nearly all of 2023 to oversee the post-production process which will certainly rely more heavily on CGI and VFX than Parasite.
Why Mickey 17 Is 2024’s Most Exciting Sci-Fi Movie
Although Dune: Part Two is a very promising sci-fi epic, Mickey 17 is still the most exciting movie of the genre coming out in 2024. With Dune: Part Two, audiences can somewhat know what they are getting into based on Villeneuve’s Dune in 2021 and the director’s other brilliant science fiction projects such as Arrival (2016) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). With Mickey 17, however, Joon-Ho will be challenged and tested in ways that he has never been before, which could result in a highly original final product that is unlike any other film ever made. Because there is so much mystery and anticipation surrounding Bong Joon-Ho’s first true sci-fi epic, Mickey 17 is the most intriguing 2024 film of the genre.
