Robert Pattinson Lines up His First Post-Batman Role

The latest arthouse favorite director to score a Robert Pattinson casting is South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. The Parasite director has cast Pattinson in his next movie, a film adaption of Edward Ashton's upcoming novel Mickey7. This will be Pattinson's follow-up to The Batman, which hits theaters in March.

The untitled film based on Mickey7 is set up at Warner Bros., reports Deadline. Bong will produce for his Offscreen production company, along with Kate Street Picture Company's Dooho Choi and Plan B. Bong is also in talks to adapt the novel.

Mickey7 will be published in February by Macmillan's St. Martin imprint. The story centers on the title character, an expendable employee on a human expedition to colonize an ice planet called Niflheim. When the mission turns dangerous, his colleagues often turn to Mickey, who has now died six times. The seventh, named Mickey7, understands that he's supposed to do work no one else wants to, since each iteration carries the memories of the previous. The film is set to be inspired by the novel, but Bong has a history of changing the source material for his adaptations, which may explain why his movie is reportedly untitled instead of just taking Ashton's title.

Bong's Parasite (2019) became the first film not in English to win the Best Picture Oscar. He also won Best Director and shared Best Original Screenplay with Han Jin-won. The movie won a fourth Oscar for Best International Feature Film and was also nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Production Design. The filmmaker is now developing an HBO limited series inspired by Parasite with executive producer Adam McKay.

The director took his time waiting for the perfect follow-up to Parasite. Late last year, he was given a manuscript of the book by Ashton, and he became interested. Over the holidays, he became "loosely attached" to the project and began meeting with A-listers in their 30s. After meeting with Pattinson, Bong and executives decided he was the best actor for the part and sent him an offer after the new year. Bong has already directed two films with big Hollywood stars, Snowpiercer (2013) and Okja (2017).

Pattinson makes his debut as Bruce Wayne in The Batman, which opens on March 4. He also has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Pattinson has worked with several critically beloved directors, including Claire Denis on High Life, the Safdie Brothers on Good Time, David Cronenberg on Maps to the Stars and Cosmopolis, and Robert Eggers on The Lighthouse. In 2020, he starred in Christopher Nolan's Tenet and Antonio Campos' The Devil All the Time.