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Ahead of the new Ridley Scott film’s release, Jacob Elordi opens up about an eight-camera shoot, a role inherited from Paul Mescal, and a pack of scene-stealing dogs.
A lone pilot, a loyal dog, and a world gutted by a flu pandemic that wiped out most of humanity. That’s the setting Ridley Scott builds his new film around, The Dog Stars, adapted from the 2012 novel by Peter Heller. Led by Jacob Elordi, the film opens in theaters on August 28, 2026 through 20th Century Studios, following a world premiere in London and a press run in which the Australian actor has laid out, appearance after appearance, what it actual means to shoot under a director who still runs his sets like a live event.
The teaser poster for The Dog Stars, Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic drama starring Jacob Elordi, in theaters August 28, 2026.
role
The cast story behind The Dog Stars started somewhere else entirely. Scott had original planned to reteam with Paul Mescal, fresh off Gladiator II, to play Hig, the civilian pilot at the center of the story. Scheduling conflicts, tied to Mescal’s commitment to Sam Mendes’s Beatles anthology, eventual pull him off the project. Jacob Elordi stepped in in early 2025, joined shortly after by Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce, round out a cast that also include Allison Janney and Benedict Wong.
Elordi’s character, Hig, is a former civilian pilot who survive the pandemic and now lives holed up on an abandon Colorado airbase with his dog and a veteran named Bangley, played by Josh Brolin. A mysterious radio transmission pushes Hig to leave that precarious shelter in search of some sign of humanity elsewhere, eventually crossing paths with Margaret Qualley’s character and Guy Pearce’s, a rancher as protective as he is dangerous.
Heller’s novel was very well received on release in 2012, often described as more contemplative survival story than action thriller, written in a clipped, poetic style. The screenplay was written by Mark L. Smith, already behind The Revenant and the miniseries Twisters, here joined by Christopher Wilkinson. Filming took place in Italy starting in late April, on a budget of roughly $110 million, with 20th Century Studios distributing alongside Scott Free Productions, Ridley Scott’s own production company.
direction
What Jacob Elordi keeps coming back to is Ridley Scott’s singular way of working. The director, known for shooting with multiple cameras roll at once, doesn’t rack up takes: he captures a scene from several angles simultaneous, then edits the film in his head as he watches the feeds roll in. In a promotional featurette for the film, Elordi described the approach admiringly, saying Scott runs roughly ten cameras at once and sits in his trailer cycling through each feed, effectively cutting the film in his head as he watches the monitors. He added that he doesn’t think anyone else in the world films that way.
Josh Brolin, reteaming with Scott after American Gangster, shared a similar set story, recalling that the director sketched out shots while Brolin was still describing an idea for a scene, and that those sketches ended up almost identical to what they filmed. At the London premiere, Elordi kept up the praise for On The Red Carpet, saying Scott pioneered modern cinema and has a hand in everything we watch today.
Speaking to Collider, Elordi went further into what that method demands of actors used to a more conventional shoot, with few takes and full coverage from as many as eight cameras rolling at once. He described the process as a kind of forced surrender, saying there’s something liberate about having to submit to Scott’s process, that you just have to dive in and trust him.
That rigor sits inside an already long career for Ridley Scott, 88, whose filmography stretches back to The Duellists in 1977 and who has kept up a run of large-scale productions in recent years, from Napoleon to Gladiator II. Cinematography on The Dog Stars was handled by Erik Messerschmidt, the score by Harry Gregson-Williams, and editing was split between Sam Restivo and Claire Simpson. The cast is rounded out by Allison Janney and Benedict Wong, the latter coming off a run of blockbuster shoots including Weapons and The Three-Body Problem before joining the production in Italy.
flow
If Scott’s directing style left an impression, it was the work done off camera that let Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley build the complicated relationship between their characters. At a press conference held ahead of the film’s rel, Elordi explain that he, Qualley and the rest of the cast spent a lot of time away from set reworking the script to make it feel more personal, saying he and Margaret worked on that relationship and tried to inject some reality into those moments.
That chemistry carry through to the red carpet at the world premiere, held August 20 at the Odeon Luxe in Leicester Square, London, with Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, Benedict Wong and Ridley Scott, accompanied by his wife Giannina Facio, all in attendance. Elordi wore a Bottega Veneta suit for the occasion, while Qualley chose a black dress paired with Chanel sandals.
In the story, Margaret Qualley’s character, Cima, is an intern doctor and the daughter of a wary, protective rancher played by Guy Pearce. Hig meets them after crash-landing his fifty-year-old Cessna, the plane he flies daily with his dog beside him in search of supplies, and, underneath that, some proof that a livable world still exists beyond his own patch of it. That search eventual puts him in the path of roam scavengers, called the Reapers in both the novel and the film, who prey on whatever settled ground remains.
scope
There’s one costar, though, who by Jacob Elordi’s own account called for a completely different approach: the dog playing Hig’s loyal companion in the film, a role filled by the animal actor Rak Jasper, who joined Elordi at the London premiere. Asked about the old Hollywood superstition against working with children or animals, Elordi waved it off, saying he liked working with the dogs on set very much.
He added that their behavior was no more unpredictable than working with Josh or Guy, in a good way, before revealing, with some humor, the real secret to getting a good take out of a dog on set: not the usual training treats, but something simpler. In his words, “they respond way better to cold cuts and things like that than traditional treats.” He called their spontaneity wonderful, wrapping up with what might be the simplest review of all: they’re such talented dogs.
survive
Beyond the on-set stories, the virtual press conference held around the film also gave Ridley Scott a chance to lay out his intentions for the material itself. Asked about the movie’s central theme, the director answered plainly that it was survival, while also stressing the importance of empathy, sympathy and humor in how he handled the story. Scott said he wants the film to entertain audiences while still challenging them.
The director also spoke about adapting Heller’s novel, acknowledging that screenwriter Mark L. Smith delivered a strong script while admitting he made changes of his own during development, particularly to the third act. Scott specifically pointed to a change involving the story’s ultimate destination, a supposed sanctuary that turns out to be something far more disturb than advertised.
london
The world premiere of The Dog Stars, preceded by a run of press screenings hosted by 20th Century Studios, produced a wave of first reactions posted online the day after the event. Those reactions, with full reviews still under embargo until August 25, painted a mixed picture: some observers praised strong performances, particularly from Elordi, Brolin and Janney, while others flagged an uneven script.
The first reviews publish once the embargo lifted confirmed that split reception. The film has been described as a min survival drama, closer to a contemplative character study than a conventional post-apocalyptic blockbuster, anchor by a show from Elordi described as fully committed, though slow by flashback sequences some found heavy-handed. The film’s deliberate old-fashion pace, far from a straight action picture, has divide opinion on whether it works, with some critics praising a Ridley Scott fully in command of a more human kind of storytelling and others finding the pace too subdued for the subject matter.
Among the more favorable reviews, the film has been ranked among Scott’s best work since The Martian, praised for reining in his usual action set pieces in favor of a more reflective drama, closer to a melancholy western than a muscular survival thriller. The harsher reviews, by contrast, called the film strangely inert for the 30th feature of Scott’s career, pointing to an academic quality that felt oddly detached despite a well-regarded show from Elordi, whose restrain screen presence was compared to the golden age of a certain kind of classic American movie star.
The Dog Stars opens in theaters Friday, August 28, 2026, at a moment when Ridley Scott, 88, continues a run of very different projects, from the spectacle of Napoleon and Gladiator II to this shh look at a near future undone by disease.
