Mickey 17 is the first major entry in WB’s auteur-driven 2025 lineup, which comprises releases from James Gunn, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joseph Kosinski, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Ryan Coogler. Unfortunately, the new Bong Joon-ho release, starring Robert Pattinson, isn’t exactly off to a flyer start, given its sizeable $118 budget.
Although the film has opened to a decent critical reception, it’s nowhere close to Joon-ho’s previous release, Parasite, which not only proved to be a critical darling but was also a dominant force at the box office. As for Mickey 17, the slow box-office start could lead to an underwhelming turnaround.
Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 is off to a cold start at the box-office
Apart from a few exceptions, the box office hasn’t been kind to big-budget productions in recent years, and unfortunately, Robert Pattinson‘s Mickey 17 hasn’t been able to avoid a cold beginning. Similar to last year’s Furiosa and The Fall Guy, the critical success hasn’t translated well into the box-office reception. Per Variety, the film has earned $7.7M from Friday and preview screenings and is currently aiming for an $18 million weekend gross.
While time will tell whether the good word of mouth will be enough for its survival at the box-office, given its budget of $118M, excluding marketing costs, profitability seems out of the equation for now.
Robert Pattinson’s linguistic sensibility made for some great improvisations
Besides its box-office struggle, Mickey 17 continues Pattinson’s artistic-fuelled post-Twilight run, and the Oscar-winning filmmaker had nothing but commendation for The Batman star. Although Bong Joon-ho is notable for closely sticking to his storyboards throughout filming, which was also the case for Mickey 17, Pattinson did an immaculate job when it came to bridging the language barrier between them.
Considering English isn’t Joon-ho’s native tongue, Pattinson’s linguistic sensibility eased the job for the director, which contributed to a lot of fun improvisation on The Batman star’s part (via Collider).
I had a co-writer or dialogue-polishing writer for those projects. Mostly I relied heavily on the actors in regards to the language of the film. With Mickey 17, it was Rob. I relied heavily on Rob. He has such a unique and amazing linguistic sensibility. Especially with Mickey 18, he improvised a lot of really fun dialogue, a lot of which was not really scripted.
Despite not matching the heights of Parasite, Mickey 17 serves as a testament to Joon-ho’s adaptability, as the themes presented in the narrative go beyond his usual social commentary.
Mickey 17 is currently running in theatres.
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