Mickey 17 receives an R rating from the MPA ratings board

The trailer for Bong Joon-ho’s quirky dark comedy, Mickey 17, dropped a couple of weeks ago and people have already taken to Robert Pattinson‘s unique performance coupled with Bong’s direction. Mickey 17 was originally supposed to be released back in March, but it wound up being taken off the schedule entirely before making the shift to 2025. Some have said that the reason for the delay is that the studio won’t let Bong Joon-ho release his director’s cut but instead want to release a “more accessible” version of the movie.

Now that the film finally has its release date set in place, the MPA Classification and Rating Administration has given Mickey 17 an R-rating “for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material.” With the nature of the film containing multiple deaths of the main character, it’s natural to assume Bong gets to play around Groundhog Day-style with a bevy of scenarios that kill off his “expendable” lead.

The official synopsis for Mickey 17 reads: “From the Academy Award-winning writer/director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, comes his next groundbreaking cinematic experience, Mickey 17. The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.“

In addition to Pattinson as the various Mickeys, the film also stars Steve Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and Naomi Ackie. It is based on the novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, with Bong Joon-ho writing the script and directing. This sci-fi thriller is the first film Bong has made since his 2019 film Parasite won Best Picture and he won the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay Academy Awards. It’s based on a novel by Edward Ashton that was called Mickey7, but they changed the number for the title of the adaptation.

Bong wrote, directed, and produced Mickey 17 for his production company Offscreen, along with Kate Street Picture Company’s Dooho Choi and Plan B’s Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, part of the latter’s overall deal with Warner Bros.

Mickey 17 is set to hit theaters on January 31, 2025.