Bong Joon Ho and Robert Pattinson kicked off the long-awaited launch Mickey 17 With the first official press event for the film in the Korean capital, Seoul, on Monday.
Korean director Bong’s first feature film since winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2019 and winning four Oscars. parasitethe sci-fi drama has been a long time coming, with filming wrapping up in December 2022.
Originally scheduled for release on March 29, 2024, the film will now have its world premiere at the Berlinale in February, before being released theatrically in Korea on February 28, followed by a Warner Bros. release in the US on March 7.
“It’s exciting to have the honor of premiering Mickey 17 in Korea before it hits cinemas worldwide in March, Bong said at the press conference held at Yongsan CGV Cinema in Seoul.
This was Pattinson’s first visit to Korea, who was greeted by hundreds of fans upon landing at Incheon Airport in Seoul.
“I’m so happy that people are excited about the film. It’s been a long road to get to this release and see people excited about the poster and actually wanting to sign it. It’s exciting,” he said.
Twilight, Batman and Tenet The star said he was confused as to why he hadn’t come to Korea before.
“I don’t understand how I never came to Seoul on promotional tours for other films. I’ve always wanted to come. I know a lot of fun people who live here, and I wanted to meet those people again,” he said, referring to Bong and his production team.
Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 science fiction novel Mickey 7, Mickey 17 The film is about a directionless man living in the near future who signs up for a job as an “expendable” or disposable employee who is sent on dangerous missions and is automatically replenished if he perishes on the job.
“The scenario seems deceptively simple at first,” Pattinson said. “But when you try to break down the mentality of Mickey, this guy who has no self-confidence but somehow doesn’t feel sorry for himself, it gets complicated very quickly. I ended up thinking of him as a poorly trained dog who needed to die 17 times until he finally learned something .
Bong said the film was more than just a sci-fi film.
“It’s about humanity. Mickey’s story is about an ordinary young man who is weak and weak,” he explained.
“Unlike the original novel where Mickey is portrayed as a history teacher and the story is full of technical explanations about science, I chose to strip away these details and focus only on the human aspects, to present Mickey as a member of the working class, a lonely character with an extreme job.
Recounting his experiences filming the film, Pattinson said the crew had the feel of a “giant Star Wars” production and revealed that he and the rest of the cast – which includes Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo – were fascinated. Through Bong’s directing style, he had his actors deliver one or two lines at a time.
“I think all the actors had the same experience where we would turn around and then ask: ‘What happens when we shoot one take and then move on?’” After one week, everyone says: “This is the best, we want to do every movie like this… and you also”. [Bong] They are very open and show modification in the group. It’s great to see the whole movie in your mind before we actually start shooting it.
Bong noted that their astonishment was due to the different way Korean filmmakers used to shoot and edit their films.
“In Korea, we usually edit live on set, which is not very common in the United States, so foreign actors often find it fascinating to see the editing done in real time,” he said.