The moment Bong Joon-hos parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture, everyone was wondering, “What’s next?” The answer, it turns out, is iA science fiction adaptation about clones and death That’s coming out in 2025. We’ve seen the first trailer and it’s absolutely insane.
The film is called Mickey 17 and it features Batman himselff, Robert Pattinson. Pattinson plays a man who realizes his job is to die and be cloned over and over again until one day a clone becomes self-aware. It is based on a book called Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton, but Joon-ho decided he wanted to kill the character ten more times, that’s why his version is like this Mickey 17. That’s what the Oscar-winning director said at CinemaCon 2024 this week as he unveiled the trailer for his 2025 sci-fi film for the first time ever. And even though the trailer won’t be released for a while, io9 was there and we have to tell you about it. Because it’s damned crazy.
The entire trailer is set to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin, so Go play this while you read about what happens. We start with a spaceship hovering over a planet. A man in a spacesuit stands in front of the ship and someone asks him if he is feeling dizzy. He admits that he feels a little dizzy when something cuts off his hand and sends it floating into space.
This is Mickey, Pattinson’s character, who has a kind of squeaky, soft voice, almost like a gangster in a Disney movie. He has a new job as an expendable, which means they’re doing a full scan of his body so that when he dies they can just print out a new one. Mickey admits he didn’t read the full application, so he wasn’t sure what it meant.
So, as an expendable item, it has to complete all sorts of different missions. We see him working with fire, on an ice planet and more, and it’s always about how he dies and how people throw a body bag into an incinerator. At some point, the people pushing the body in realize that the person in the body bag is still alive. “It’s okay,” Mickey says, and they push him into the flames.
At one point we see a version of him fall through the ice and land completely out of reach. “Things aren’t looking good for you,” someone says as a giant creature runs away and kills another version of him. Meanwhile, a friend asks him, “How does it feel to die?” Mickey tells him that even though he’s gotten used to it after 17 times, he still doesn’t like it. Then Mickey goes into his room and lies down next to…another Mickey.
“Why aren’t you dead?” asks the other Mickey, Mickey 18, who has a much more normal, confident voice. We don’t know, but we find out that if there are “many” in this world, they must be exterminated. So we see scenes of other clones being murdered, including a moment where someone suggests playing Rock Paper Scissor to find out which of their clones is alive.
A series of action scenes with the two Mickeys fly by until one Mickey says to the other Mickey: “I don’t like you.” To which the other responds: “But I am you.” “I’m not you!” he retorts and they continue fighting. We then see the pair back on the ice planet with a whole field full of creatures from before that look like zombie buffalo. “Not this again.” they say.
So yes, Mickey 17 looks damn wild. A film about dealing with death, but also about how to live. A film with a hard science fiction premise that also contains a lot of humor and pathos. And several Roberts Pattinson.
Mickey 17 will be released in theaters on January 31, 2025.
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