Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars Brings Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin Into a Broken World — August 28 Can't Come Soon Enough

Ridley Scott is having the kind of year most directors only dream about. His epic The Odyssey just sailed past $1.1 billion worldwide, cementing his status as Hollywood's most bankable veteran. And while that massive win is still ringing in the industry's ears, the 88-year-old filmmaker is already turning toward something far quieter and lonelier: The Dog Stars, his post-apocalyptic survival drama that hits theaters on August 28, 2026 via 20th Century Studios.

What Is The Dog Stars About?

Adapted from Peter Heller's acclaimed 2012 novel, with a screenplay by Mark L. Smith (the Oscar-nominated writer of The Revenant), The Dog Stars imagines a world where a devastating flu virus has nearly wiped out humanity. Jacob Elordi stars as Hig, a civilian pilot who survives by flying his Cessna over the ruined Colorado landscape with only his dog, Jasper, for company. His uneasy alliance with Josh Brolin's Bangley — a hardened ex-Marine who has turned survival into a brutal science — is the film's emotional engine. Together they keep the wolves, both human and otherwise, at bay.

Then Hig picks up a faint radio transmission coming from a hospital over 300 miles away. The signal suggests someone might still be alive out there. It's the first spark of hope in years — and the start of a journey that gives the film its most haunting line from the trailer: "There's gotta be something better than this."

A Cast Built for Awards Season

Scott has stacked the film with serious talent. Alongside Elordi and Brolin, Margaret Qualley takes a key role, with Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong, and Allison Janney rounding out the ensemble. For Elordi, it's his biggest leading-man test yet — a far cry from Euphoria, Priscilla, Saltburn, and next year's Wuthering Heights. His natural stillness and quiet unease make him a perfect fit for a man slowly running out of reasons to keep flying.

Brolin, meanwhile, brings exactly the kind of grizzled, no-nonsense energy that made him unforgettable in No Country for Old Men and Sicario. Bangley isn't a hero — he's a survivor who long ago stopped asking why.

Why August 28 Matters

With a $110 million budget and a lean 118-minute runtime, The Dog Stars is Scott's most intimate sci-fi project in decades. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (Mank, The Killer) lensed the film, with a score by Harry Gregson-Williams. Early test screenings drew mixed reactions, but Scott's late-August slot gives the film room to breathe away from summer franchise traffic — and if the trailer's reception is anything to go by, adult audiences are hungry for it.

After The Odyssey, Gladiator II, and now The Dog Stars, one thing is clear: Scott isn't slowing down. He's just changing gears — and taking us somewhere quieter, colder, and far more dangerous.