Thermometers indicated a whopping -9 degrees Celsius by the time eager fans began to line up outside the hotel that houses the Berlinale press conferences. The ice-white skin of vampire Edward Cullen on creased posters beautifully mirrored the thin layer of snow that covered the bobble hats and scarves of already shrieking festival-goers—and that was six hours before RPattz was scheduled to arrive.

The commotion was a byproduct of this year’s big Saturday night gala at the Berlin Film Festival, Bong Joon Ho’s much-awaited adaptation of Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel Mickey 17. The project was first announced early in 2022, two years after Parasite made history as the first-ever non-English-language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Soon after, Robert Pattinson was cast as unlikely hero Mickey Barnes, an ordinary man who takes on the extraordinary job of dying for a living. Shooting took place later that year, with a release date set for March 29, 2024. Rumors swirled of a Cannes premiere, then a Venice premiere, then a Toronto premiere as the release date got pushed back time and time again, feeding the beast of public curiosity.

In January 2025, three years after the director first announced the project, the festival debut for Mickey 17 was at last set for the Berlin Film Festival. The glitzy gala took place the day after the film’s much-anticipated world premiere in a standalone event in London and saw brave hoards of fans lining the ice-covered streets of Berlin to take a peek at the picture’s star-filled cast including Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun and Toni Collette.

When Pattinson stepped out of his car onto the red carpet, the screams could be heard from the neighboring cinemas, with lines of cinephiles trying to catch a glimpse of the star. The wait in the cold proved fruitful to those who arrived early as the English actor took his time taking pictures and g autographs by the carpet barricades—an ocean of Edward Cullen posters melting into Batman memorabilia, as teenage girls stood elbow to elbow with die-hard DC Comics fans.

“Can’t help but wonder how many hours Mark Ruffalo spent watching Trump compilation YouTube videos to achieve this imitation,” asks Kyunia, while EinBen says the only “unrealistic” thing about this futuristic world “is that Marshall didn’t get elected as a president on Earth in the first place.”

At the film’s press conference, Director Bong and the cast—Pattinson, Yeun, Ackie, Collette, and Happening’s Anamaria Vartolomei—spoke about the creative decisions behind their work, from Pattinson revealing that his accent was inspired by Steve Buscemi in Fargo (who Director Bong used as visual inspiration for the creature in The Host) to Collette saying that this was the first role she ever took on before reading the script. Of the Trump-slash-Kenneth-Marshall comparisons, Director Bong says Ruffalo’s character “embodies the dictators of the past” adding, “Because history always repeats itself, it might seem like I’m referring to someone in the present—even if I make something thinking of an event in the past, it seems to cover current events as well.”

have tried to anchor Director Bong’s latest to wider cultural references, as well, with Adam saying that it “kinda rules that after reshaping the Oscars history and a six-year pause Bong Joon Ho essentially released a fucked up feature-length Futurama episode,” and Mr_Bamason congratulating the director for “making the closest thing we’ll ever get to Robert Pattinson playing both Beavis and Butthead.”