Steven Yeun joins Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon Ho’s new sci-fi thriller
The film is based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Aux News Robert Pattinson
As reported by Deadline, Steven Yeun has joined the cast of Bong Joon Ho’s next film, starring Robert Pattinson. The sci-fi thriller is an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s Mickey7, which director Bong optioned before the novel’s release earlier this year.
While it is unclear how faithfully the script will follow the plot of the book, publisher Macmillan describes Mickey7 as follows:
Mickey7 is an Expendable: A disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.
On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7’s fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein.
Mickey7 must keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.
Although these two actors have a remarkable amount of A24 cred between them–Pattinson has appeared in four of the company’s films and Yeun has three of their projects under his belt, including his Oscar-nominated role in Minari–the Mickey7 adaptation is being made by Warner Bros. Back in May, Deadline reported that the film was in preproduction in London at the studio’s Leavesden facility.
Yeun previously worked with Bong in 2017's Okja, in which he played an animal rights activist alongside Paul Dano. Besides Pattinson, he’s joining Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo, and Naomi Ackie in the new film’s cast. Bong’s last feature was, of course, the 2019 triumph Parasite, which won four Oscars.
Yeun will next be seen in Jordan Peele’s Nope. As a voice actor, he’s returning to Tuca & Bertie for a third season, which premieres on Adult Swim on July 10. He also has the comedy series Beef with Ali Wong coming up, though a release date has not been set.
12 Comments
I feel like this “not allowed to have more than one copy of a clone” idea has been done a lot, but I also feel like I’ll watch an SF movie from Bong Joon Ho no matter what.
I was thinking of a certain Duncan Jones movie, which for all I know was cribbing off an existing work I’m unaware of.
James Patrick Kelly’s “Think Like a Dinosaur” (which was made into an Outer Limits episode) comes to mind.
The wikipedia page for that sounds like this Canadian animated short:https://www.nfb.ca/film/to_be/
Excellent! So we’ve got Micky7(2023?), Moon(2009), TLAD(1995), and To Be(1990). I seem to remember that Frank Herbert described people creating clones of themselves for specific tasks (after which they were destroyed) in Whipping Star (1970) or The Dosadi Experiment (1977), but I can’t find a specific reference. (And no, I’m not thinking of Destination: Void [1965]; in that one clones had few rights, but were allowed to exist)
It’s definitely different in vibe than Moon. The book is pretty comedic and the main character is completely aware that he’s a clone from the start and retains all memories with each reboot (well sort of, it depends on when he last backed his memories up). I think its a very good match for Bong, with its mix of comedy and sci-fi and also class commentary and the cast sounds interesting.
Very interesting plot. Natives.
Didn’t read the article. Too distracted by how unbelievably hot Steven Yeun is.
Secret Asian Man indeed.
Right? I was already sold just by the main pic.
Sounds like a sequel to Moon.
Ralph finally follows through on long-standing promise to his wife . . .