Mickey 17 director reveals star character was named after Premier League flop

The director of a newly-released Hollywood film has revealed how one of the picture’s star characters was named after a Premier League flop. 

Bong Joon Ho – who directed the back-comedy sci-fi Mickey 17 – chose to name one of his characters after a player who has played for both Tottenham and Chelsea. 

His new film tells the story of a man who joins a space colony as an ‘Expendable’, a disposable worker who gets cloned every time he dies for research purposes, in a plot set in the future. 

Steven Yeun plays the character in question, who works as a pilot but is also seen using the schemes of a con artist. 

His character is called Timo – who the director revealed is named after current Tottenham player Timo Werner. 

Boon also points out that the word ‘timo’ means con artist in German – which he claims so to work for Steven Yeun’s character because he also says Werner is a fellow ‘con artist’ due to his high wages. 

The director revealed his character is named after current Tottenham player Timo Werner

Rumoured to be earning around £165,000 per week, Werner has failed to score for the Lilywhites in the Premier League so far this season. 

While his poor performances are not an outlier in a Spurs side that has struggled for consistency this campaign, supporters may have hoped for more from the German. 

He initially impressed on loan at Spurs in the second half of last season after he was not deemed essential by RB Leipzig. 

His spell in north London comes after he also found form hard to come by when at Tottenham’s cross-capital rivals Chelsea. 

Werner joined them in the summer of 2020 after the Blues activated the release clause he had at the time with RB Leipzig – which was a sizeable £45million. 

Although he also struggled for goals during his first spell in England, Werner was part of a Chelsea side that lifted the Champions League for the second time in 2021. 

But after never fully settling into life in the Premier League, Werner was sold to Leipzig for around £25million a year later. 

While Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou can exercise an option to buy clause in the region of £8.5 million, it is unclear if the Australian will do so given Werner’s inconsistent performances.