Mickey 17, Warner Bros.’ expensive auteur sci-fi feature from Parasite Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho, finally arrives in theaters this weekend with a global outlook around $45M.
The Robert Pattinson movie carries a net production cost after UK tax credits of $118M before P&A. It will take turnstiles in overdrive for Mickey 17 to break even which, sources say, exists between $240M-$300M.
On the upside, U.S. tracking has improved for Mickey 17 from the teens to the point where a $20M+ domestic opening could be possible. Original sci-fi is a hard nut to expand an audience for; typically, it’s a cold genre aimed at older men. The gist of the campaign has been making Pattinson’s space cog worker — an “expendable” who sacrifices himself only to be “reprinted” or reborn again — relatable to general moviegoers. The comp among sci-fi movies is Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 Oscar winner Arrival, which opened to $24M. Critics also enjoyed Mickey 17 at 85% certified fresh.
Next to Bong’s other movies, the production cost for Mickey 17 stands above the filmmaker’s own Netflix feature Okja ($50M) as well as his Cannes Palme d’Or and multi-Oscar-winning Parasite ($11M), which netted over $46M in profit after all ancillaries. Based on the Edward Ashton novel Mickey 7 and adapted by Bong, the project was greenlighted by the Toby Emmerich Warner Bros administration in January 2022 and shepherded and supported by the incoming Michael De Luca/Pamela Abdy studio leadership when they took over in June 2022. The pic’s high cost stemmed from the director landing the right ending (the third act of which in the 2-hour, 17-minute feature arguably is the best part of the film). Since Christopher Nolan’s departure for Universal, Warners has been eager to attract auteurs back to the Burbank lot of Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood.
The R-rated movie, which also stars Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collete, Steven Yeun and Naomi Ackie, is booked at 3,770 theaters stateside and begins previews at 3 p.m. Thursday at 3,200 sites. Mickey 17 will have the full range of premium tickets in PLFs, Imax, Dolby Cinema and motion seats.
Mickey 17 debuted in Korea last weekend to $9M, kicking off on a non-traditional Friday to set the stage for its global rollout. The start was the best for a Warner Bros movie since 2019, as well as Pattinson’s top Korea launch ever.
This frame adds 66 offshore markets, including such majors as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, China, Australia and all of Latin America, with an international debut eyed at about $25M. The global screen count is 28,500.
Early social and critics’ scores in France are good — about on par with Alien: Romulus and Tenet, for example — and UK critics largely are onboard. China could be interesting to watch. It’s still widely dominated by Ne Zha 2 (at around $1.97 billion), and will continue to be, even though the local blockbuster is beginning to settle. State media ran a story on Monday about the positive response to Mickey 17’s Sunday premiere screenings in Beijing and seven other cities. The marketing campaign, China.org reported, “playfully appeals to Chinese audiences, especially younger viewers, by portraying the film as a tale of workers navigating demanding bosses.” Moviegoers “praised the film’s funny, heartfelt and timely allegory, along with the cast’s performances.”
The Mickey 17 team has been out and about over the past couple of months, including a January stop in Seoul for Pattinson and Bong, the London premiere in early February, the Berlin Film Festival gala screening and a Paris premiere. Another Korea event was recently held with Bong, Ackie, Ruffalo and Yeun.
From left: ‘Mickey 17’s Bong Joon Ho, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun and Choi Doo-ho
(Photo by iMBC/Imazins via Getty Images)
We’ll see how Mickey 17 shakes out. Typically, there can be a groundswell of moviegoers toward an auteur movie in its opening weekend, i.e. Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese. No one was expecting Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu from Focus Features to hit it out of the park as the distributor’s second-highest-grossing movie ever Stateside with $95.6M and a $21.6M 3-day. Audiences found Eggers’ The Northman in its home window, which was in part responsible for the filmmaker seeing his highest-grossing movie ever in Nosferatu.
Angels Studios also has a wide entry this weekend in U.S./Canada: Bill Guttentag’s Rule Breakers,starring Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The pic’s blurb: In a nation where educating girls is rebellion, a visionary woman sparks hope and opposition. Their courage ignites a movement that could transform their nation forever.
Playing at 2,044 theaters, Rule Breakers is expected to file in the low single digits with the Rotten Tomatoes critics score at 77% fresh.