Mickey 17 has outgrossed one of director Bong Joon Ho’s previous hits. The new science fiction movie, which is adapted from the Edward Ashton novel Mickey7, stars Robert Pattinson as a man who is repeatedly cloned every time he dies while being forced to test a dangerous planet that is being colonized. The Mickey 17 release kicked off on March 7, taking No. 1 at the domestic box office with a $19 million total that saw it become the first movie to knock the holdover тιтle Captain America: Brave New World from its perch on top of the chart.
Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, Mickey 17 is projected to conclude its second weekend in theaters with a cumulative worldwide box office total of $90 million. This sees it surpᴀssing the $86.7 million earned by 2014’s Snowpiercer to make it Bong Joon Ho’s highest-grossing English-language release to date. The only Korean-language movies ahead of it in the director’s filmography are the monster movie The Host ($92.6 million) and the Best Picture winner Parasite ($253.8 million).
What This Means For Mickey 17
Its Box Office Success Is Hampered By Its Budget
At the rate it is going, it seems highly likely that Mickey 17 will easily pᴀss the $100 million milestone at the worldwide box office, which is a feat that only three 2025 releases have accomplished so far, namely Captain America: Brave New World, Dog Man, and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. This would also see it push past The Host to become the second highest-grossing Bong Joon Ho movie of all time, in any language.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is the third highest-grossing movie of the year in spite of the fact that it did not receive a theatrical release in North America, where it is a Peacock exclusive.
In spite of this record, which is compounded by the fact that the Mickey 17 opening weekend was the best domestic debut for a Bong Joon Ho movie, the movie is still struggling to break even in theaters. It comes with a mᴀssively risky production budget of $118 million, which probably places its break-even point somewhere around $295 million. Even if it outgrosses Parasite, which is an unlikely prospect considering that movie’s stellar word of mouth, it would probably have to do so by more than $40 million just to turn a profit.
Our Take On The Mickey 17 Box Office
The Bong Joon Ho Movie Is A Unique Project
Even though Mickey 17 will likely be a financial disappointment by the end of its run, the fact that it was made at all is a net positive. The movie has been generally well received by both critics and audiences, earning scores of 78% and 73% from those respective groups on Rotten Tomatoes. Though its commercial prospects are uncertain, even after its upcoming VOD and streaming debuts, the fact that a non-franchise science fiction movie was given such a lavish budget makes for an interesting project, if not a particularly lucrative one.
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Source: Variety
