WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for Mickey 17.

Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi comedy movie Mickey 17 has three different тιтle cards shown at three distinct times in the film. As the Academy Award-winning director’s long-awaited follow-up to his Best Picture winner Parasite, Mickey 17 quickly became one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2025 after several delays pushed it back from its original 2024 release. Although Mickey 17 did not achieve the critical acclaim of Parasite, it earned a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 77%.

Mickey 17 still performed fairly well at the box office, earning $127 million (against a production budget of $118 million) to become leading man Robert Pattinson’s fourth consecutive movie to earn more than $100 million. Pattinson, who portrays various versions of his self-тιтled character, primarily starts as Mickey 17 – who is believed to be ᴅᴇᴀᴅ – and Mickey 18 – who was generated to replace the previous Mickey. Even though Mickey is designed to be expendable, he has endured severe pain, torture, and ridicule because of his “inhuman” status in the eyes of his space colony leader, Kenneth Marshall.

Why Mickey 17 Has Three тιтle Cards

Each Represents Mickey’s Character Progression

Mickey 17 has three separate тιтle cards shown throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the movie. Collectively, they represent marks of story progression and character development as Mickey’s illegal predicament of living with his duplicate unfolds. The first тιтle cars appeared for Mickey 17, the name of the film, before another appears for Mickey 18 once his character is introduced. Lastly, the film ends with a revision of the тιтle in the third тιтle card for Mickey Barnes because he’s now the last and only Mickey once again.

The inclusion of the Mickey Barnes тιтle card at the end signifies that Mickey 17 will be the last, and therefore real, Mickey Barnes, even though the original Mickey 1 (or 0) has already died. In what was a deviation from the Mickey 7 novel, the carbon printing machine that birthed new versions of Mickey was destroyed at the end of Mickey 17, which is not what takes place in the book. Since Mickey 18 dies toward the end of the movie, Mickey 17 can rightfully take over as the one and only Mickey Barnes.

What Bong Joon-ho Has Said About Mickey 17’s Final тιтle Card

He Views Mickey’s Joruney As A Coming-Of-Age Story

Bong Joon-ho explained his thought process in having three тιтle cards in Mickey 17. “Most of the film is led by Mickey 17. And then we have the main тιтle, you hear a bell chime, the 17 turns to 18, and then we go to Mickey in the cave, and he goes through all these different stages to finally reclaim his selfhood and find self respect as just Mickey Barnes.”

In this way, Bong Joon-ho views Mickey 17 as a coming-of-age story about Mickey finally rising to his fullest self. “That’s why I chose the number 18, because that’s when most societies recognize someone as an adult.”