Bong Joon-ho’s highly-anticipated sci-fi pic "Mickey 17", starring Robert Pattinson, will have its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.
“Mickey 17” will debut in South Korean theaters on February 28, and will be globally released a week later by Warner Bros.
Securing the movie’s international premiere is a major coup for the Berlinale’s new artistic director Tricia Tuttle — who will celebrate her first edition at the festival this year — succeeding Carlo Chatrian.
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 starry cast also includes Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
The $118 million movie marks Bong’s first feature since “Parasite”, which became the highest-grossing Korean film in history, as well as won Cannes’ Palme d’Or and made Oscar history, becoming the first foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for best picture.
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.
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 movie 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 January 21. The Berlin Film Festival will run from February 13-23.
Follow the latest news on Google News
