Bong Joon Ho, the Oscar-winning director of “Parasite”, has once again captured the attention of audiences with his latest film, “Mickey 17”. The original science fiction film opened in first place on the North American box office charts, earning an impressive $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters. This was enough to dethrone the three-week reign of “Captain America: Brave New World”.
Overseas, “Mickey 17” has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. This is a testament to the global appeal of Bong Joon Ho’s work and the anticipation for his next project after the success of “Parasite”. However, despite its strong opening and positive reviews (79% on RottenTomatoes), the film still has a long way to go before it becomes profitable. With a reported production cost of $118 million, not including marketing and promotion expenses, “Mickey 17” will need to continue its success at the box office in order to break even.
The release of “Mickey 17” comes just a week after the Oscars, where filmmaker Sean Baker made a passionate speech about the importance of the theatrical experience. He emphasized the need for filmmakers to continue making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases, and for audiences to support and appreciate the cinematic experience. In this sense, “Mickey 17” is a perfect representation of this moment in the film industry, or at least an interesting case study.
The film is an original work from an Oscar-winning director, led by a big star, and given a blockbuster budget by Warner Bros., one of the few remaining major studios. However, despite all of these factors, audiences did not treat it as an event movie. This raises questions about the current state of the film industry and the changing preferences of moviegoers. But one thing is for sure, “Mickey 17” is a bold and ambitious project that deserves recognition and support.
Originally set for release in March 2024, “Mickey 17” faced several delays, which Bong Joon Ho has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, the film stars Robert Pattinson as an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. The star-studded cast also includes Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
The film opened in 3,807 locations domestically, with its strongest performance in New York and Los Angeles. Premium large format showings, including IMAX screens, also accounted for nearly half of its opening weekend. Internationally, it did especially well in Korea, where it made an estimated $14.6 million.
In second place was “Captain America: Brave New World”, which added $8.5 million from 3,480 locations in North America and $9.2 million internationally. Its global total currently stands at $370.8 million, making Walt Disney Studios on track to become the first studio to cross $1 billion in 2025 sometime this week.
Other films in the top five include holdovers “Last Breath”, “The Monkey”, and “Paddington in Peru”. The weekend also saw the release of two new films, “In the Lost Lands”, a fantasy film from Paul W.S. Anderson starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, and Angel Studios’ “Rule Breakers”, which follows a group of Afghani girls on a robotics team.
Meanwhile, Neon increased the theater count for “Anora” to nearly 2,000 screens after its success at the Oscars. The film, which won five awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, saw a 595% increase in ticket sales from last weekend, bringing its total grosses to $18.4 million.
According to data from Comscore, the 2025 box office is up 1% from last year as of this weekend, but down 34.2% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019. This fluctuation is a reminder of the unpredictable nature of the film industry, but experts believe that it will bounce back.
“That is the rollercoaster that is the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for
