Following up on his Oscar-kissing movie, Parasite, Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho is putting Robert Pattinson in an MRI machine. At least, that’s what we can glean from the teaser for his new film, Mickey 17, opening March 2024. Based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 follows Robert Pattinson as an “expendable” yet “regenerative” employee of an ice planet mining operation. When one miner, another Mickey is 3-D printed to take his place. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s how the U.S. economy works, too.
In the teaser, Bong’s swirling camera sees “Mickey” in a tanning bed straight out of a Paul Verhoven movie. We assume that’s the 3-D printer. But according to the book’s synopsis, Mickey 17 goes missing on a mission, opening a position for another Mickey. Ouch! There’s nothing worse than having to kill the clone that took your job. Mickey 17 must survive on a foreign planet without being discovered as a duplicate. If caught, Mickey will get tossed into a high-tech wood chipper to harvest his protein. The future sounds great.
Joining Pattinson are Steven Yeun (Minari), Naomi Ackie (I Want To Dance With Somebody), Toni Collette (Hereditary), and Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac). Will they also be jumping into that spinning tanning booth from the future, or will these actors play the heartless employers hellbent on disposing of our hero?
Based on the unfortunately formatted teaser (can studios stop releasing vertical trailers?), Mickey 17 returns Bong to his sci-fi interests a la Snowpiercer. The plot, too, resembles his highspeed train epic, with its class warfare and disposable underclass. That sort of thing never goes out of style.
Mickey 17 opens on March 29, 2024.