Bong Joon Ho‘s hotly anticipated sci-fi film “Mickey 17,” starring Robert Pattinson, will have its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, Variety has learned.
The $118 million movie marks Bong’s first directorial effort since “Parasite,” which won Cannes’ Palme d’Or and made Oscar history, becoming the first foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for best picture.
“Mickey 17” will debut in South Korean theaters on Feb. 28, and will be globally released a week later by Warner Bros. There could also be a premiere of the movie in South Korea slated for before the Berlinale unspooling.
Securing the movie’s international premiere is a major coup for the Berlinale’s new artistic director Tricia Tuttle — a progressive American film journalist and curator — who will celebrate her first edition at the festival this year, succeeding Carlo Chatrian. Tuttle previously led the BFI London Film Festival during a fast-growing five-year chapter.
Popular on Variety
Based on the 2022 novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, the sci-fi thriller stars Pattinson as an “expendable” employee named Mickey Barnes. In the novel, Mickey is sent on dangerous missions to colonize an ice planet. When one version of Mickey dies, a duplicate is created to replace him that retains most of his memories. The star-studded cast also includes Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo.
Along with writing and directing the movie, Bong also produced it through his company Offscreen. Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner of Plan B and Dooho Choi of Kate Street Pictures are co-producers on the film.
Warner Bros. was initially planning to release “Mickey 17” in March 2024 and later moved it to January 2025, before moving it again to the end of February. The decision to delay the release was reportedly made to secure an Imax release window and allow more time to finish the project, the completion of which was delayed due to the Hollywood strikes and various production shifts.
As previously announced, the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival will kick off with Tom Tykwer’s “The Light,” which will be presented as a Berlinale Special Gala out of competition. The film marks Tykwer’s return to the big screen after seven years and four seasons as the writer and director of the hit series “Babylon Berlin.”
Under Tuttle’s new leadership, the festival will this year be “revitalizing” its Potsdamer Platz location with two new additions, the Stage Bluemax Theater and the Berlinale Hub75.
The full Berlinale lineup will be unveiled on Jan. 21. The Berlin Film Festival will run from Feb. 13 to 23