Mickey 17 Is The Best Possible Argument For Directors Getting Final Cut

In an interview with Empire MagazineDirector Bong explained that “Mickey 17” was indeed his final cut, and that Warner Bros. never tried to take that away from him. “The studio respected my final cut rights,” he said, but also said they were willing to provide input as collaborators, rather than overseers. “Of course, during the editing process there are many opinions and many discussions that happen,” he continued. “But this film is my cut, and I’m very happy about it. It was a long process, but it was always smooth and respectful.”

When Director Bong first began writing “Mickey 17,” it was under the American presidential administration of Joe Biden. I can’t imagine that he could have predicted that we would once again be living under a Trump administration when he wrote the character, because Marshall is very much presented like someone the rest of the world has moved on from, and are now able to look back and laugh at because he’s no longer a formidable threat.

Unfortunately, that is not the world we live inand by presenting Marshall as the Trump avatar he is, “Mickey 17” stops feeling like a work of speculative fiction and becomes a warning of things to come if we aren’t careful. Had Director Bong not been granted final cut, I can’t imagine a studio being brave enough to have seen the results of the election, and still allowed the film to come out as is. Disney recently came under fire after cutting a transgender storyline from the Pixar series “Win or Lose,” something they were apparently fine with when giving the show a greenlight but clearly got cold feet over including in the wake of Trump’s re-election.

I’ll admit that when I saw “Mickey 17” in the theaters, I found myself choking back tears a few times — not because it’s a tearjerker of a movie or anything, but because I didn’t realize how badly I needed someone (in this case, Director Bong) to put something out into the world that essentially says, “Hey, you’re not crazy, you’re just living under the regime of an absolute maniac and trying to maintain normalcy is an impossible ask.” I hope Warner Bros. knows how important this movie is for our current time period, and I hope other studios take note and stop stifling the creative voices of the people they hire and trust them to do their job. The world is better for it.

I spoke about the movie on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which features my full interview with Director Bong and a couple of the film’s cast members:

“Mickey 17” is now in theaters everywhere.