In The Dog Stars, the apocalypse isn’t over — and it’s only getting worse.
20th Century Studios’ epic thriller — based on Peter Heller‘s captivating bestseller — opens in theaters Friday, August 28. Set in 2035, it takes place in the aftermath of a deadly flu pandemic that decimated the earth’s population and left many of its survivors with a debilitating blood disease. With society in ruins, basic necessities such as food, fuel, and medicine have become scarce, with trust being perhaps the most valuable commodity of all. In this unforgiving new world, the survivors must not only find ways to stay alive but also determine how much of their humanity they are willing to sacrifice in order to do so.
For director and producer Ridley Scott, that tension was central to telling this story.
“There’s nothing optimistic about the end of the world, or a crash of that nature,” Scott, who was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards® in 1992, 2001, and 2002, explained. “But what is curious is there will always be survivors. There will be the good survivors and the bad survivors — the ones who are brutal and the ones who are killers.”
That divide is embodied by Hig (Oscar® nominee Jacob Elordi), a sensitive former mechanic, and Bangley (Oscar nominee Josh Brolin), a tough-as-nails former Marine. Where Hig sees possible connections, Bangley sees possible threats. Hyper-vigilant and deeply suspicious of outsiders, Bangley — who converted a deserted airstrip in Eerie, Colorado, into a defensible homestead — stands perpetually on guard. Hig, meanwhile, looks for survivors and supplies, taking his beloved dog Jasper along on scouting missions.
“They absolutely need each other,” Brolin said of Bangley, equal parts protector and provocateur. “Ultimately, we want exchange. It can be negative or positive, but we need it.”
That relationship is one of the film’s emotional engines. Whereas Bangley was built to withstand a time like this, Hig wasn’t built to simply survive. So, after Hig hears a cryptic radio transmission, he sets out to find who’s on the other end of the call, leaving Bangley behind.
“When Hig decides to leave, I think it crushes Bangley. He just can’t express it,” Brolin said. “He has this façade, and it’s a necessary façade for what’s going on.” Bangley, he added, is a man who appears to need nothing while depending profoundly on another person. “Everybody wants to be valued. He’s valued in a certain way, but he covers up another basic human need because he’s valued in that way. And once Hig leaves, it all starts to fall apart.”
Hig’s search takes him far beyond the security of the airstrip and ultimately to an isolated canyon home occupied by Pops (Emmy® Award winner Guy Pearce), a military-minded recluse, and his daughter Cima (Golden Globe® nominee Margaret Qualley). Cima, in particular, offers Hig something he has nearly forgotten exists: genuine human connection.
But The Dog Stars doesn’t treat survival as a simple battle between optimism and pessimism. Scott said he sees a post-apocalyptic society in which the most useful people may be those whose skills have suddenly become essential — like the hidden Mennonite community, led by Aaron (Benedict Wong). In the old world, technological expertise was paramount. In the new one, knowing how to grow food could be a matter of life and death.
“Ironically, the Mennonites are farmers, so suddenly a farmer and a doctor become the most valuable assets you could possibly have,” Scott said. “Do you know how to grow vegetables? I certainly don’t. It’s pretty easy, but you need to know when, what, and how.”
The Journey from Page to Screen
After producers put the screenplay on Scott’s radar, he couldn’t put it down. “If I read it and go, ‘Wow,’ then by the time I get to page 50, I’m beginning to perspire because I think, ‘Please don’t drop the ball,” Scott said. “And when I got there, he hadn’t dropped the ball.”
Scott wasn’t the only one who felt that way about the source material.
“When you read prose like that, you’re like, ‘If this is being made into a film, I hope somebody understands the poetry and the social relevancy of that prose and that they can transfer that into an interesting mythological movie,” Brolin shared. “When Ridley called and said that he was doing it, I was like, ‘I’m in.’ There are some filmmakers out there who you just trust no matter what. Not everyone is going to make a great film every time, even great filmmakers. But then there are people — especially Ridley — who I trust very much.”
Known for his distinct visual flair and cinematic eye, Scott said he knew exactly how to interpret the sequences Hellers had so carefully crafted, which Mark L. Smith turned into a screenplay. Principal photography took place in Italy from April–June 2025, with Oscar winner and seven-time Emmy Award winner Allison Janney joining the cast as Darlene.
“Because of my track record — quite a few billion, by the way — I’ve got a pretty good sense of what’s commercial and what I can do,” Scott said. “But you gotta earn it. You get good at choosing material with the possibility of being commercial, because it’s expensive.”The result is a survival story built around more than the lengths people will go to in order to survive. At its center are people who need one another even when the circumstances of their world make trust dangerous. Hig’s search for other survivors is ultimately a search for evidence that humanity itself hasn’t disappeared. Bangley’s instinct is to protect the small piece of humanity he has left. Brolin said he sees something universal in Hig’s earnestness, explaining, “Some people are super comfortable in their one-bedroom apartment, and they don’t have any ambition to grow. Me, I’m constantly on the road and I don’t care where I stay; I could sleep in a train station, in a hostel, in a hotel. I love that sense of adventure, because I want to experience as much as I can, as colorfully as I can, for as long as I can.”
In The Dog Stars, that dichotomy is front and center. Hig must leave the safety of his home to discover whether anything worth saving remains beyond it, while Bangley must confront the possibility that survival without human connection may not be survival after all. And that juxtaposition is where The Dog Stars poses its most profound question: In a world where survival is instinct and humanity is a choice — what does it mean to be truly alive?
