The long wait for Bong Joon-ho’s highly-anticipated sci-fi pic "Mickey 17", starring Robert Pattinson, has just gotten longer.
Warner Bros. has delayed “Mickey 17” from January 31, 2025 to April 18, 2025, opening three months later than the initial release date.
The new date allows the movie to screen in IMAX and raises hopes to capture audiences over the Easter holiday.
The upcoming Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” from director Antoine Fuqua was originally set for the April 18 slot, tying up IMAX and premium large format screens but was pushed to October 3 by Lionsgate earlier this week, prompting Warner Bros. to make the switch.
“When the April 18 date became available, we quickly moved to secure it for ‘Mickey 17,'. We’re thrilled with the new date, and very happy the film will be available to audiences in IMAX,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson said in a statement.
Moving into the vacant January slot is Warner Bros. and New Line’s “Companion,” previously dated three weeks earlier for Jan. 10.
“With January 31 now available with a full IMAX footprint, we are also very happy to have ‘Companion’ releasing on this new date,” the spokesperson added.
This isn’t the first time “Mickey 17” has been pushed back, as it was originally dated for a March 29, 2024 release.
At the time, sources told Variety that the first shift to 2025 was to allow more time to finish the project, which had been affected due to last year’s strikes and other various production shifts.
Studio sources say the April date change, however, was a vote of confidence in director Bong following a positive response to the film’s first trailer, released in September.
Based on the 2022 novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, the sci-fi thriller stars Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, an “expendable” — a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize an ice planet — who refuses to let his replacement clone take his place.
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 audience got a first look at what Bong’s adaptation would bring in December 2022, when Warner Bros. debuted a cryptic teaser featuring the actor waking up in a chamber.
Despite plot details having been kept under wraps, it is known that the starry cast also includes Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
“Mickey 17” is Bong’s first feature since “Parasite”, which became the highest-grossing Korean film in history, as well as the first non-English language movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
In addition to writing and directing, Bong also produces the pic through his company Offscreen.
Additional producers include Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner of Plan B and Dooho Choi of Kate Street Pictures.
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