Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” just got off the theater in a month

Director Bong Joon-ho’s Hollywood film “Mickey 17” ended its screening with a significant loss within a month of the theater’s release and went to an online streaming platform, which can be called a small screen.

“Mickey 17,” which was released in more than 3,800 theaters in North America on the 7th of last month, will be released on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. at 9 p.m. on the 7th, Western time, and will finish the theater screening.

U.S. economic media Forbes reported that “Mickey 17” is also available on Apple TV and several other streaming platforms, including Pandango.

Mickey 17, whose number of theaters gradually decreased until the 4th, posted 65.3 billion won in ticket sales in North America and 113.6 billion won in other regions for a month on box office mojo, a U.S. movie box office aggregation site.

In Korea, the cumulative number of audiences was 2.998 million and accumulated sales of 29.6 billion won until the 6th based on the integrated computer network for movie theater admission tickets, which was not a big hit.

Mickey 17, which recorded a total of 178.9 billion won in ticket sales, reportedly spent 170 billion won on net production excluding marketing and promotion costs.

U.S. media Variety reported that Warner Brothers, the film’s investment distributor, spent an additional 116.9 billion won on marketing.

In consideration of the theater’s share of separation, he said the movie’s ticket sales break-even point is around 438.5 billion won.

He also estimated that the film’s losses could reach 116.9 billion won, reporting industry estimates that global ticket sales for “Mickey 17” would total only 209 billion won late last month.

In the end, as “Mickey 17” does not actually exceed these industry expectations, the loss of theater screenings may be greater.

These days, most movies do not make a profit just by opening theaters, but make up for losses by selling TV and streaming platforms.

However, Variety analyzed that it may be difficult for “Mickey 17” to eventually escape the deficit because the movie’s box office performance usually determines the amount of contracts with streaming companies.

“Mickey 17,” starring Hollywood star Robert Pattinson, received a relatively low B rating in an on-site audience survey by U.S. market research firm CinemaScore early in its release.

In addition, Rotten Tomatoes, an American film and drama rating site, scored 77 points out of 100 for critics and 73 for viewers.

This is significantly lower than director Bong’s previous works, “Parasite” (99 critics and 95 audiences), “Mother” (96 critics and 89 viewers), and “Memories of Murder” (95 critics and 92 viewers).

“Mickey 17” is the first new film released in five years after director Bong won four Oscars in 2020 for “Parasite,” and it has also attracted great attention in Hollywood as an ambitious film invested and distributed by conglomerate Warner Brothers.

JENNIFER KIM

US ASIA JOURNAL