It’s official: Bong Joon-ho‘s “Mickey 17” will have its international premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Variety reports the news, and it’s a great catch for new Berlinale artistic director Tricia Tuttle, curating her first Berlin lineup after five years doing so at the BFI London Film Festival. There’s an off chance the film’s Berlinale screening may be its world premiere, too, if it doesn’t receive one in South Korea beforehand.
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There’s no official premiere date for “Mickey 17” yet, but the Berlinale this years runs from February 13 to 23. That means the film’s international premiere may occur just days before it hits South Korean theaters on February 28. After numerous release date shuffles, Warner Bros. now has “Mickey 17” set to hit US theaters on March 7.
Bong Joon-ho’s latest is easily one of the most anticipated movies of 2025, as it’s the South Korean director’s first film since 2019’s “Parasite.” “Parasite” was a cinematic sensation that year, picking up the Palme d’Or at Cannes and becoming the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Add in leading man Robert Pattinson‘s star power, and “Mickey 17” is likely an early box office hit this year.
But fans of Bong Joon-ho shouldn’t expect something in the vein of “Parasite” or “Memories Of Murder” in his latest; think the lighter, off-kilter vibes of “Okja.” Based on Edward Ashton‘s 2022 novel “Mickey7,” Pattinson stars in the film as “expendable” employee Mickey Barnes, who’s sent on dangerous missions as colonists look to inhabit an ice planet. When Mickey dies, an exact duplicate takes his place and retains most of his memories, and that eventually causes serious problems. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Tonie Collette, and Mark Ruffalo also star in the film, along with Holliday Grainger and Anamaria Vartolomei.
Along with directing and adapting Ashton’s novel for the big screen, Bong also produces “Mickey 17” via Offscreen. Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner co-produce through Plan B, as does Dooho Choi via Kate Street Pictures.
While “Mickey 17” gets the red carpet treatment at the Berlinale, it doesn’t open the festival. That honor goes to Tom Tykwer‘s “The Light,” presented out of competition as a Berlinale Special Gala. It’s Tykwer’s first film after seven years as writer/director on the series “Babylon Berlin.”
As noted earlier, the Berlin Film Festival runs from February 13 to 23. And mark your calendars: the full festival lineup gets revealed on January 21.
