Mickey 17: New Footage Revealed at CinemaCon

CinemaCon is currently in full swing in Las Vegas, and ComicBook.com has been in attendance to check out some of the latest teases, trailers, and more exciting content for upcoming films. During the Warner Bros. presentation, there were some updates about James Gunn's highly-anticipated Superman movie, and new footage was revealed for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. There was also new footage shown of Mickey 17, the next film from Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho. The movie stars The Batman's Robert Pattinson and is expected to hit theaters next year.

Mickey 17 follows a character who gets a job that demands its employees "die for a living." Joon-Ho took the stage at CinemaCon to discuss his next project, marking his first time at the event. 

"It's based on a sci-fi novel called Mickey 7 but we made it Mickey 17," the director explained "The number is the number of times he dies. I kill him ten times more... It's a sci-fi movie but this is just a human story." Joon-Ho went on to explain that the film is about a simple man who ultimately ends up saving the world, making it "a very strange type of hero's journey." 

Joon-ho shared that he doesn't think he would have adapted the story in a typical way and managed to find a strange way into it. The trailer was introduced to the crowd, and ComicBook.com was pleased to see it "loaded with hugely entertaining footage" that shows Pattinson's Mickey dying over and over again until a pair of Mickeys are alive at the same time. This creates quite a dilemma for the manufacturers, who want both of them killed off. Meanwhile, the two Mickeys seem to get each other's nerves quite a bit. It's a rich, original, and impressively-textured world.

"He's my hero," Pattinson said of Joon-ho, revealing he was told the part would be impossible. "Read the script and just thought it was one of the most unusual, funny, bizarre, beautiful sci-fi scripts I'd ever read in my life."

Mickey 7 Author Reacts To Film:

Mickey 17 is based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, which was released by St. Martin. In the book, Mickey7 is an Expendable, "a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim." Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous – even suicidal – the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal... and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

"Director Bong does his own thing, and he's writing the script," Ashton explained in an interview with Space.com. "He asked for my input on a few things early on. Like some details I had not considered when I was writing the book, such as, How do Creepers reproduce? That was a great question, and we talked it through. A lot of people have asked if I'm nervous since he has a reputation for diverting from the source material. My answer was absolutely not. That man is a genius. I've seen all of his films, and he's never made a bad one. I don't think he's going to start with Mickey 7. He'll do a fantastic job."

Mickey 17 is scheduled to premiere on January 31, 2025.