Director Bong Joon-ho‘s Hollywood film ‘Mickey 17’, which was highly anticipated globally, is disappointing not only in Korea but also in North America with its disappointing performance. There are even speculations that the box office failure of ‘Mickey 17’, which had an astronomical production cost of 118 million dollars (171.3 billion won), could cause financial difficulties for its production company, Warner Bros.

“Failed to Break Even”

‘Mickey 17’ maintained the top spot at the box office after its release across North America on the 7th, but its rankings were pushed down starting on the 14th when the action film ‘Novocain’ was released. It quickly regained the top spot on the 15th, but on the 17th, it yielded the top spot to ‘Novocaine’, continuing an uneasy box office competition.

‘Mickey 17’’s unstable position is also revealed in its box office revenue. ‘Mickey 17’‘s second weekend revenue was $7.43 million, a decrease of over 60% compared to its first weekend revenue ($19 million).

And it’s not just in North America. In China, where its domestic animation ‘Nezha 2’ is enjoying explosive popularity, it is recording overwhelmingly poor box office results compared to other films released at the same time, and in Korea, it is maintaining the top spot at the box office, but has only attracted 2.66 million viewers as of the 18th of this month. Director Bong‘s previous work, ‘Parasite’, attracted over 8 million viewers in the same period (19 days of screening).

According to Box Office Mojo, ‘Mickey 17’ has so far grossed $91.11 million (132.2 billion won), and North American media outlets predicted that “‘Mickey 17’ needs to gross over $300 million worldwide to break even, but at this rate, it is virtually impossible.

Why did it fail despite favorable reviews?

Amid shocking predictions that the box office failure of the large-scale project ‘Mickey 17’ could lead to a financial crisis for Warner Bros., Warner Bros. is planning to minimize its deficit by delaying the release of ‘Mickey 17’ for 3 weeks. It has been decided to release it on digital platforms such as OTT on the 26th.

North American experts pointed to the ‘excessive production cost’, which raised the break-even point too much, as the reason for the box office failure of ‘Mickey 17’, which was invited to the Berlin International Film Festival before its release and received consistent favorable reviews from critics. The American media outlet Huffington Post US commented, “It was an incredibly risky choice to spend this much on a movie that wasn’t a franchise movie with a certain degree of guaranteed success”.

The media outlet explained that ‘Mickey 17’ is based on a novel, but it is a ‘movie that is close to an original script’, as the original novel itself is significantly less popular or well-known, and analyzed that in the midst of a global box office slump, it is difficult for sequels or movies that are not based on popular original works to succeed. And then he gave an example, saying, “Last year, the top 10 global box office hits of 2024 were all sequels to successful movies, except for ‘Wicked.’ ‘Wicked’ was also based on a popular Broadway musical.”

Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.