One of the most talked about movies of 2025, Mickey 17 holds the potential to not only earn Bong Joon-ho more accolades but also boost his net worth.
Bong does not need an introduction. He had already proved his mettle in South Korea with the crime thriller Memories of Murder (2003) before the world took note of him for the monster thriller The Host (2006).
Known for making films with anti-capitalist and anti-fascist themes, Bong had already won multiple Blue Dragon Film Awards and Grand Bell Awards, two of Korea’s most prestigious cinematic honours. But he was ‘crowned’ as a true auteur with Parasite (2019). The film earned him three Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, one Critics’ Choice Award and the Palme d’Or alongside a galaxy of accolades from other major awards ceremonies at home and abroad.
Thus, fans’ excitement was at its peak ever since Bong announced Mickey 17, his first fully English-language Hollywood movie. As one of the most-anticipated movies of 2025, its success is expected to catapult him into a richer club of directors, at least in his home country.
Bong Joon-ho: His net worth, popular movies and more
What is the net worth of Bong Joon-ho?
Bong Joon-ho has a net worth of USD 30 million, according to celebrity wealth tracker Celebrity Net Worth (CNA).
Some media reports claim that he is one of the richest celebrities in South Korea and has a net worth of over USD 1 billion. But the reports are inaccurate. The reason is that there are only three filmmakers globally whose net worth is above the billion-dollar mark, and each of them has directed more than one movie which grossed USD 1 billion at the worldwide box office. They are: George Lucas (around USD 10 billion net worth), Steven Spielberg (around USD 8 billion net worth) and Peter Jackson (around USD 1.5 billion net worth).
Lucas and Jackson are the brains behind mega franchises Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, respectively. Spielberg, on the other hand, is recognised as a giant behind the camera, whose numerous successful movies have defined the term ‘blockbusters’. Franchises such as Jurassic Park and the Harrison Ford-starrer Indiana Jones (co-created by Lucas) are part of the USD 10 billion cumulative gross of all movies directed by him.
It is evident, therefore, that to become a director worth a billion dollars, one has to deliver commercially-hit movies on the scale of Jackson, Lucas or Spielberg.
Bong, undoubtedly one of the best 21st century auteurs, is neither known for directing escapist movies nor for big-budget studio productions aimed at collecting greenbacks. His movies are social commentaries with a dash of dark humour, where shadows of class struggles can be felt lurking behind the drama unfolding on the big screen.
This brings us to the question: How does Bong fare when compared to one of his most prominent director contemporaries in South Korea, Park Chan-wook?
The Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook connection
Though South Korea has produced many great filmmakers in the recent past, Bong Joon-ho and the legendary Park Chan-wook are seen as the torchbearers of thought-provoking contemporary Korean cinema.
Bong’s early trajectory is quite similar to that of Park. Both faced early failure at the box office but delivered masterpieces with their second or third movie.
In Park’s case, he faced two back-to-back flops with The Moon Is… the Sun’s Dream (1992) and Trio (1997) until he directed Joint Security Area (2000) — one of the greatest movies which turned 25 in 2025. Similarly, Bong tasted failure with his debut movie, Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), but his second film, Memories of Murder, catapulted him to national acclaim.
“My first film Barking Dogs Never Bite was a huge disaster at the box office,” Bong told Collider in 2007. Some years later, he jokingly expressed relief when the film was not featured as part of a showcase dedicated to him.
Bong consistently delivered hits since Memories of Murder until the release of Mickey 17. His other films in this period include The Host, Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017) and Parasite. He also directed a segment in the Japanese-language anthology film Tokyo! (2008) and served as the executive producer of Snowpiercer (2020–2024), the series based on the post-apocalyptic movie of the same name.
Similarly, barring his only English-language film, Stoker (2013), Park has not delivered a flop since Joint Security Area. Even more interestingly, Park was one of the producers of Snowpiercer, which was Bong’s first English-language film, and was an executive producer on the TV show of the same name.
While there is little to no information about Park Chan-wook’s net worth despite the huge success of his movies, reports indicate that Bong is a multi-millionaire. This is possibly because of Bong’s success with Parasite, which is to date the highest-grossing Korean movie of all time at the worldwide box office.
Popular Bong Joon-ho movies and their total gross
The box-office hits delivered by Bong Joon-ho can be seen from two different angles. The first is their performance at the domestic box office. The second is their worldwide gross.
As for the domestic box office performance, the information may not be the same in all cases. This is because Korean box-office collections are primarily presented in terms of ticket sales and not box office revenue, unlike the West. Moreover, there is either a lack of information about theatrical admissions for older films, especially before 2010, or a disparity in the numbers.
Below is the domestic (South Korean) box office collection of his movies. (Mickey 17 is not included as it is still in theatres at the time of writing.) Figures are presented in a range based on available information on the official Korean Film Council (KOFIC) database, Koreanfilm.org by Darcy Paquet, which is widely hailed as a reliable database of Korean cinema since 1999, and mainstream Korean or international media reports.
- Parasite: Admissions – 10.3 million; Collection – USD 60-87.5 million
- Snowpiercer: Admissions – 9.3 million; Collection – USD 46-67 million
- The Host: Admissions – 11-13 million; Collection – USD 45.6 million
- Memories of Murder: Admissions – 5.1 million; Collection – USD 25 million
- Mother: Admissions – 3 million; Collection – USD 13.7 million
- Okja: Admissions – 322,701; Collection – USD 1.6-2 million
- Barking Dogs Never Bite: Admissions – 57,000; Collection – USD 3,026
As for worldwide gross, numbers from box-office databases The Numbers and Box Office Mojo reveal the following:
- Parasite: USD 253-262 million
- The Host: USD 89-92.6 million
- Snowpiercer: USD 83-87 million
- Mother: USD 17.2-17.7 million
- Okja: USD 1.6-2 million
- Memories of Murder: USD 726,461 – USD 1.2 million
There is no information about the worldwide gross of Bong’s first film as it was not theatrically released outside of South Korea in its original run and was screened only at film festivals.
Based on the earnings of his movies, it can be concluded that Bong’s net worth as stated by CNA is more accurate than any other report. It is also worth noting that his three highest-grossing movies to date have one common name — the actor Song Kang-ho, whose net worth, as reported by CNA, is around USD 20 million.
Their first was Memories of Murder, which established Bong’s career and elevated Song’s stature to greater heights as he won two of his five Grand Bell Awards for this film.
According to the 2007 Collider report, The Host, which was their second film together, was seen by 25 per cent of Korea’s population by the time it ended its theatrical run. It has the distinction of being one of the only three Korean films to be included in The Hollywood Reporter‘s ’40 Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time’ list alongside Park’s Joint Security Area and Lee Chang-dong’s Peppermint Candy (1999).
Their greatest collaboration is Parasite, which not only made Bong a filmmaker with a global standing but also brought Song his highest international recognition till then — a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Why did Okja gross so less?
Okja is Bong Joon-ho’s second largely English-language film after Snowpiercer. It was a highly anticipated project at the time of its release, given that the director had by then established himself as a major filmmaker in Korea.
Okja, starring Hollywood heavyweights, such as Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito and Jake Gyllenhaal, alongside a Korean cast, was co-produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Productions and distributed by Netflix for a total budget of USD 50 million.
Due to a boycott by Korean distributors over Netflix’s involvement, the film was released only in 111 theatres in South Korea. It was subsequently released on Netflix and was not theatrically released outside Korea. This is why its box-office gross is low compared to Bong’s other movies barring his debut film.
Box-office revenue of Mickey 17
Mickey 17 is Bong Joon-ho’s first complete Hollywood film. Based on the book Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, the sci-fi movie stars Robert Pattinson in the lead role with Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo in other roles. The film marks Yeun’s second collaboration with Bong after Okja.
In the film, Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes is a human tasked with dangerous missions on an alien planet. He is an expendable, in the sense that a new Mickey can be ‘reprinted’ (cloned) each time the previous version dies. But chaos arises when a new Mickey is created while the 17th version is still alive.
Many have noted that the story and concept are similar to Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009). But while Jones’ film starring Sam Rockwell is an AI horror movie, Mickey 17 is drawn in Bong’s template of socially relevant cinema centred around class differences where underdogs revolt against heartless capitalist oppressors.
“Mickey 17 is a futuristic sci-fi film but in the end it is a very human story. The key concept of the film, human printing, lands our main character in this predicament of being an expendable. This guy who has this extreme job, who is constantly sent out to these dangerous missions because he can just be reprinted whenever he dies. In that sense it’s a very working class story as well,” Bong said in an interview with Everyman Cinemas.
Mickey 17 was released in South Korea a week before its worldwide theatrical premiere. According to Variety, it opened across 2,153 screens and drew in 980,549 admissions. Its four-day opening gross in South Korea totaled USD 9 million. Its reported budget is around USD 118 million, making it the costliest film in Bong’s career to date.
Bong is also one of the producers of the film, with Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Dooho Choi. Brad Pitt, Jesse Ehrman, Peter Dodd and Marianne Jenkins are its executive producers.
But the film has already become one of the biggest box office bombs of 2025, earning only about USD 91 million at the worldwide box office. The movie is expected to end its theatrical run and move to streaming platforms around the world in the last week of March. Yet Bong will surely add several more millions to his net worth, over and above his salary as a director, given that producers also have a share in revenue generated from streaming.
(Hero and Featured images: Dominique Charriau/WireImage)
