Sci-fi film 'Mickey 17' tops box office, but profitability long way off

Voice of America

09-03-2025

'Parasite' filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's original science fiction film 'Mickey 17' opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone 'Captain America: Brave New World' after a three-week reign.
Overseas, 'Mickey 17' has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion.
A week following the Oscars, where 'Anora' filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going — 'Mickey 17' is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study.
It's an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even.
Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning 'Parasite' faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel 'Mickey7' by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo also star.
It opened in 3,807 locations domestically where it performed best 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.
Second place went to '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 rests at $370.8 million. Walt Disney Studios is on track to become the first studio to cross $1 billion in 2025 sometime this week.
Holdovers 'Last Breath,' 'The Monkey' and 'Paddington in Peru' rounded out the top five. The weekend also had several other newcomers in 'In the Lost Lands,' a fantasy film from Paul W.S. Anderson starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, and Angel Studios' 'Rule Breakers,' about Afghani girls on a robotics team.
Neon upped the theater count for 'Anora' to nearly 2,000 screens after it won five Oscars on Sunday, including best picture, best director and best actress. It earned an estimated $1.9 million (up 595% from last weekend), bringing its total grosses to $18.4 million.
According to data from Comscore, the 2025 box office is up 1% from where it was last year as of this weekend and down 34.2% from the last pre-pandemic box office year of 2019.
'That is the rollercoaster that is the box office,' said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. 'You have two or three down weeks; it can profoundly impact the bottom line and the percentage advantage. But it will come back again.'
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. 'Mickey 17,' $19.1 million.
2. 'Captain America: Brave New World,' $8.5 million.
3. 'Last Breath,' $4.2 million.
4. 'The Monkey,' $3.9 million.
5. 'Paddington in Peru,' $3.9 million.
6. 'Dog Man,' $3.5 million.
7. 'Anora,' $1.9 million.
8. 'Mufasa: The Lion King,' $1.7 million.
9. 'Rule Breakers,' $1.6 million.
10. 'In the Lost Land,' $1 million.