5 Reasons Why Mickey 17 Flopped At The Box Office

Put bluntly, it was a very disappointing weekend at the box office. 2025 has not gotten off to the greatest start, with even Marvel's "Captain America: Brave New World" only doing okay in theaters, as opposed to the massive windfalls we'd come to expect from these movies in years past. Save for the unexpected $2 billion Chinese blockbuster "Ne Zha 2," it's been tough sledding. In keeping with that sentiment, director Bong Joon Ho's long-awaited sci-fi flick "Mickey 17" hit theaters this past weekend with disappointing results.

The good news for Warner Bros. is that "Mickey 17," which stars Robert Pattinson ("The Batman"), topped the charts domestically with $19 million. It led a weekend with very little new competition, save for Paul W.S. Anderson's fantasy epic "In the Lost Lands," which barely managed $1 million in its debut. Overall, the domestic box office for the weekend totaled just over $53 million. That's bad, and the news unfortunately gets worse for WB and Director Bong.

With a massive budget and so-so reviews, "Mickey 17" is now firmly in flop territory. Having already opened in several overseas markets, the film's running total sits at $53.3 million. The road to profitability is now a pipe dream. So, what went wrong here? We're going to discuss some of the biggest reasons this promising endeavor went off the rails. Let's get into it.

First and foremost, Warner Bros. simply spent too much money on "Mickey 17." The production budget alone, after reshoots and whatnot, totaled $118 million. That's cheaper than a Marvel movie (by a lot), but it's wildly expensive for what translates to an original movie for audiences. It's technically based on Edward Ashton's book "Mickey7," but that hardly makes it a franchise picture in the eyes of a ticket buyer. Right or wrong, Hollywood has had a budget problem for years now as studios try to make crowd-pleasers that are becoming increasingly expensive to produce. In this case, the math proved to be very unkind. 

That $118 million doesn't include marketing, so we're looking at a break-even point of roughly $400 million worldwide, since WB reportedly spent around $80 million on marketing. Keep in mind, theaters keep around half of the money from ticket sales. It's not all going right into the studio's pocket.

Yes, Bong Joon Ho is a master filmmaker who directed the Best Picture winner "Parasite," which was a resounding success for a non-English language film. Success is still relative, though, as "Parasite" made a little more than $50 million domestically. Giving him this much money for a non-franchise science fiction film with a wacky premise was a tremendous risk. WB should have probably tried to mitigate that risk by spending less on it. Easier said than done, I grant you, but the realities are what they are.

Another big issue is that Warner Bros. seemingly got cold feet when it came to "Mickey 17." The studio delayed the movie several times, kicking it out of 2024 and originally to January 2025. January is, historically speaking, not where blockbusters are born. It's often viewed as a "dump month." They eventually moved it to March, but all of that shifting around offered a window into the behind-the-scenes uncertainty.

Ultimately, WB wanted to be in business with Director Bong, but "Mickey 17" couldn't be more different than "Parasite" and it's entirely possible that the studio didn't really know what they were paying for. Whatever the case, when the final product showed up on their doorstep, it's clear they didn't quite know what to do with it. That's a shame, but it is what it is. To what degree it hurts Director Bong's ability to get films green lit in the future remains uncertain, but something tells me he'll be just fine. WB, meanwhile, has to shoulder the weight of a likely flop. That's a tough pill to swallow. 

When it comes to original, non-franchise movies in the marketplace in the pandemic era, they are tough sells. Unless it's a reasonably budgeted horror movie, audiences simply don't turn up for them anymore en masse (for the most part). The rare exception is a movie that gets that "must see" stamp of approval. In the case of "Mickey 17," the consensus is largely good but not great, which didn't do anything to help matters.

The movie, which takes place in a future where people can sign up to be "expendables" who are cloned and die over and over again, currently holds a decent 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics to go with a 72% audience score. That puts it in the "I'll wait to stream it" camp for a lot of folks. Certain critics have been effusive in their praise, with /Film's BJ Colangelo labeling "Mickey 17" as a "masterpiece" in her review. But without such praise from the majority, this movie's fate was all but sealed.

The biggest hurdle for this movie — and any non-franchise movie for the foreseeable future — is getting people to care about something that isn't based on something they're already familiar with. "Mickey 17" is a prime example of just how difficult it is to get people to care. We've got an Oscar-winning director, a killer ensemble cast, and an interesting premise. Not to mention it was released on a weekend where nothing was stopping it from succeeding. And yet, it didn't pan out nearly well enough.

The fact of the matter is that nearly every movie in the top ten globally in 2024 was a sequel, save for "Wicked." The biggest non-franchise movie was "It Ends With Us" ($350 million), but that had a very reasonable budget. The biggest original? "IF" ($190.5 million), and that movie certainly didn't make its money back theatrically. Christopher Nolan directing a biopic like "Oppenheimer" to nearly $1 billion globally is very much the exception and extremely far from the rule. Originals are still needed, but the budgets can only be so high until audience habits change — or if they change. In the age of VOD and streaming, they may never revert back to what they once were. 

Not to pile on here, but hinging this movie's success on Robert Pattinson was also a risky move. Not because he's not a great actor, as he's arguably one of the finest working in Hollywood today. Pattinson has been praised for his wild performance in "Mickey 17." The problem is that Pattinson, with all due respect, is not a "butts in seats" movie star unless we're talking about an already established franchise. In "Twilight" or "The Batman," he gets people to come out. In something original? Not so much.

Just looking at Pattinson's resume, his hits outside of big, established franchises are few and far between. Maybe Warner Bros. was hoping that after "The Batman," things had changed. It brings me no joy to say that they haven't, at least not in this case. Very few movie stars working today can sell tickets just because they're involved. Even with all the talent in the world, Pattinson is, unfortunately, not on that list.

We spoke more about the film's box office performance on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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"Mickey 17" is in theaters now.