Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon Ho has announced his next film. The filmmaker is holding talks with actor Robert Pattinson for an untitled sci-fi film for Warner Bros. The project is an adaptation of the forthcoming novel, Mickey7, by author Edward Ashton and is being described to be a synthesis of Andy Wier’s The Martian and Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. The story will revolve around Mickey7, a man who sets out on an expedition to establish a colony on the ice world Niflheim. During the journey, he takes on risky jobs and regenerates as a clone each time he dies, with most of his memories still in one place. However, Mickey7 returns to his base after he is presumed dead to witness that a new clone, Mickey8, has replaced him. An imprint of Macmillan, the novel is expected to be published in the first quarter of this year. 

Bong, whose Parasite swept the 2019 Oscars, will produce the upcoming film, with Dooho Choi's Kate Street Picture Company and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner's Plan B, which earlier bankrolled his 2017 Netflix venture Okja, while Peter Dodd will represent the studio. Having already garnered a fan following for his acclaimed work in Snowpiercer (2013), the filmmaker’s popularity shot up after the stupendous success of his Parasite, which became the first non-English-language film to win an Oscar. Bong also won Best Director, while sharing the award for Best Original Screenplay, with the film going on to make $263 million worldwide, and a limited series spin-off currently in development for HBO with Don't Look Up's Adam McKay. 

As for Robert Pattinson, the actor's next is Warner Bros. highly-anticipated The Batman, which is scheduled to open in theatres worldwide on March 4. The actor became a global sensation in the 2010s after playing Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise and has since been praised for his performances in films like Good Time (2017) and The Lighthouse (2019), including Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in 2020.