A robust but hardly dominant Thursday afternoon and evening launches the new Bong Joon Ho sci-fi satire “Mickey 17” to what looks to be a healthy if not remotely “blockbuster” opening weekend.

Deadline.com reported that a $2.5 million Thursday folded in to create a $7.7 million “opening day” (Friday) and that led to a $19 million opening weekend, which sweeing aside the humorless/joyless attempted sci-fi satire “Captain America: Brave New World,” which dominated most of February.

If “Mickey 17” movie cost $120 million+, well that’s not great news.

Adapted from a novel by Edward Ashton, “Mickey” i’s a cutting, comic commentary on work, circumscribed lives of limited expectations facing younger generations, politics and the involvement of crazy, dim-witted robber barons in space exploration. It’s daring and new and thus not a “franchise” or automatically presold product to a fanbase that should probably be more eager to “see what the deal is” with this new Robert Pattinson vehicle.

Pattinson moved on from “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” with challenging films like “Cosmopolis,” “Good Time,” “High Life,” “The Devil All the Time,” ““The Lighthouse,” “Damsel,”and “The Rover” before taking on the guise of the latest “Batman.”

He’s worked with many of the most challenging filmmakers — Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Nolan, Robert Eggers — taken chewy supporting roles (“The King,” “The Devil all the Time,”“Waiting for the Barbarians” and “Tenet”) and worked in most every genre there is.

Honestly, if you’re not at least curious about any film that has RPatts’ name above the title, you’ve been missing out. A lot. It’s a stunning body of interesting, divergent work.

I’d like to think that $20 million estimate for the wildly ambitious, pointedly political, uneven and anti-climactic in the end “Mickey 17” is low. But pre-sold franchises are safer bets than formerly presold genres like sci-fi and horror. Word of mouth will be mixed because this isn’t as familiar, dumb or easily grasped as a comic book or horror movie.

“Captain America” Brave New World” tailed off but held onto second place with an $8.5 million weekend.

“Last Breath” did better last week than one might expect, and the weekend produced another $4.2 million.

“The Monkey” and “Paddington in Peru” should ended the animated “Dog Man’s” run in the top five, with each of those hitting $3.–$3.9, and “”Dog Man” clearing $3.5.

“Anora,” re-released after its five Oscar wins, added another $1.8 million and probably clear $20 million by next weekend.

Angel Studios’ “Rule Breakers” cracked the top ten, as did Viva Pictures’ animated “Night of the Zoopocalypse.”