Box Office: Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Mickey 17’ Eyes $18M-$20M U.S. Launch, Slapped With B CinemaScore

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Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi space epic Mickey 17 has finally landed at the box office, where it looks to open to $18 million to $20 million domestically. While that’s on the lower end of expectations, it’s more than enough to come in at No. 1 after starting off Friday with $7.7 million in ticket sales

All eyes are on the Warner Bros. and Plan B movie, since it has faced multiple delays and is Bong‘s followup to best picture winner Parasite.

Neither reviewers nor audiences are exactly mooning over the film, which boasts a solid but not spectacular 78 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. In terms of audience scores, it presently rests at 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes but was slapped with a B CinemaScore.

Sci-fi is always a tough sell, not to mention that Mickey 17 cost north of $118 million to produce, which puts additional pressure on it to perform at the box office (Warners has endured a rough run as of late). Overseas, it’s already grossed a promising $18.7 million, including a hefty $11.4 million in Bong’s native South Korea, for an early global haul of $26.4 million through Friday.

In the dark comedy that’s set in a nascent ice colony, Robert Pattinson plays a repeatedly reconstituted “expendable” who is killed again and again. Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Colette and Mark Ruffalo also star. Edward Ashton originated this world in his 2022 novel Mickey 7, which centers on the seventh iteration of Mickey Barnes.

Elsewhere, Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World is falling to No. 2 in its fourth outing with an estimated weekend cume of $8.7 million for a domestic haul hovering around $177 million.

There’s a three-way race for third place brewing between deep-sea thriller Last Breath, family film Paddington in Peru and The Monkey, all of which look to gross around $4 million.

The Monkey is from indie distribution outfit Neon, home of this year’s Oscar-winning Anora. Not only that; Tom Quinn’s Neon is also home of Parasite, which was both a critical and commercial success.

In the wake of Anora‘s dominant performance at Sunday’s Oscars, the film expanded into 1,750 theaters this weekend and is seeing a big bump. If estimates are correct, it could collect a hefty $1.8 million for a domestic tally of $18.3 million.