There was a lot of excitement around Mickey 17 before it finally, after some release date shuffles, arrived in theaters. Not only was the sci-fi epic Bong Joon Ho‘s first film since his Oscar-winning triumph with Parasite, but it also starred Robert Pattinson and was based on Edward Ashton’s best-selling novel. What could go wrong?
Unfortunately for Bong, the question soon became, “Why wasn’t Mickey 17 a much bigger hit?” The reviews were generally positive, even with some heavy-handed themes that winked at current events a little too obviously. But the movie underperformed at the box office and didn’t seem to wow audiences as much as it could have.
Over a year after Mickey 17‘s release, Variety asked Bong about his experiences behind the scenes that may have contributed to that.
Bong pointed out that while Mickey 17 wasn’t his first English-language film, it was still “my first time working with a classic old Hollywood studio. In terms of the actual filmmaking and the mechanism of creating the film, I thought there weren’t really any differences in the process. But because it had quite a big budget—it was my first film that had a budget above $100 million—I felt a lot of psychological, mental pressure. So I think naturally I’m going to work on smaller films from now on.”
Despite that pressure, though, Bong said he was still able to bring his vision to the screen.
“Director’s final cut was part of my contract and everyone at the studio and at my agency tried their best to protect me. Of course, during post production, there was lots of discussions and a lot of opinions going back and forth, but it wasn’t ever like someone was forcing something on me or giving me pressure,” he said.
And to those who thought Mickey 17 sucked, he’s aware you’re out there—and he has a self-deprecating way of dealing with it. “Luckily, all my films have been released as my director’s final cut, even a movie as big as Mickey 17, and all the good parts of that film and all the bad parts of that film came from me,” he said. “I take full responsibility. So shit on me if you didn’t like it!”
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