EXCLUSIVE: Five years after working together on the Netflix pic okja, Steven Yeun is reuniting with Bong Joon Ho on the director’s next feature film at Warner Bros. The untitled film is based on the novel mickey7 by Edward Ashton and also stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette.
Bong will write, direct and produce for his production company Offscreen, alongside Kate Street Picture Company’s Dooho Choi and Plan B’s Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner as part of the latter’s overall deal with Warner Bros. The film reteams Bong and Choi with Brad Pitt’s Plan B following their successful collaboration on okja in 2017.
mickey7 was published in February by St. Martin, a Macmillan imprint. While the film will be inspired by the novel, sources say that given Bong’s past experiences with adaptations, his version might ultimately may be different from the novel’s. The novel’s story follows Mickey7, who is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.
The project is Bong’s first since his 2019 South Korean masterpiece parasite swept the world to become a global cultural touchpoint and shattered box office records. The genre-defying film was honored with the Cannes Palme d’Or and culminated with its historic night at the 92nd Academy Awards, where it became the first non-English-language film to take home the Best Picture Oscar, along with wins for Director , Original Screenplay and International Feature Film award.
Yeun has a big year ahead starting with Jordan Peele’s thriller nope. Yeun co-stars with Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer in the pic, which bows July 22. Following that, he has the Netflix and A24 series Beef where the stars opposite Ali Wong.
Yeun was most recently seen in the A24 pic minaret the film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and earned Yeun some of the best reviews of his career; they were followed by Oscar, SAG, Critics Choice and Independent Spirt Award nominations for the role.
He is repped by CAA and Gotham Group.