On the heels of two historical epics — 2023’s Napoleon and 2024’s Gladiator II — Ridley Scott is making a welcome return to the sci-fi genre with The Dog Stars, with Oscar nominee Jacob Elordi as its lead alongside Josh Brolin and Margaret Qualley. The first full-length trailer has arrived, as seen above, and while I’m not sure this new action movie will be the one to give Scott his Oscar dues, it does look exciting as all hell.
And yeah, a big chunk of my excitement stems from the brief, mysterious, and arguably fetching shots of Oscar and Emmy winner Allison Janney in there. But we’ll get to her shortly.
The Dog Stars’ Post-Apocalypse Looks Peaceful Until It Doesn’t
Ridley Scott is taking viewers into a far different near future than the settings of his most classic science-fiction films. (Namely Alien and Blade Runner, but we can throw in The Martian and one other of the reader’s choice.) Those familiar with the book-to-screen film‘s source material, Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, are in the loop on the global pandemic that largely wiped out the population. Early on in the trailer, life appears tough but almost strangely idyllic, in a “Back in the good ol’ days” kind of way.
As Hig, Elordi is a former pilot making a go at survival with Bangley (Brolin), an ex-Marine with an edge, and Cima (Qualley), a medic with an eye (and heart) for Hig. Unfortunately, it isn’t long before the peaceful facade is revealed to be just that, and the bonkers-looking threats are revealed.
The Dog Stars appears to be the first 2026 movie release to go all-in on using night-vision as a visual aesthetic, which seems like a brilliant plan to play into the bizarre looks of the more feral survivors that seem to be overtaking any area they go running into. It seems like they’re all still maintaining human traits, though, and haven’t gone all Rage virus-zombie. But in those shots, they also look like members of a trippy Toxic Avenger tribute band, so who knows?
Whatever the case, as soon as the trailer gets intense, Jacob Elordi lights it up in what could very well be the role that sends him into a more action-heavy career path. It’s a character that Brolin would have been great for had this been made 20 years ago, and Elordi fills the space quite convincingly. His performances in historical dramas and romances don’t exactly scream “bad-ss,” but it’s a good look, and it can only help his Bond chances, if those rumors are to be believed.
Whatever Is Up With Allison Janney’s Character, I’m All For It
The fourth-billed star of The Dog Stars, Allison Janney only appears fleetingly – still more so than Guy Pearce and Benedict Wong – but those quick shots are enough to spark some obsessive feelings. Totally normal ones, though! Well, mostly.
I mean, she instantly stands apart from other characters, in that she’s basically in head-to-toe Pan Am flight attendant cosplay, while everyone else is dressed in the usual drab looks that accompany apocalypses. She’s also tending bar, which feels like it has to be a major luxury in a world so broken. In large part because there’s electricity there, as opposed to other settings shown in the trailer. Speaking of…
Okay, so Janney’s unnamed character has both booze AND cigarettes, so she must be royalty or something. And bar lights are certainly not the extent of her electricity usage. As seen above, she apparently has access to security camera footage, presumably to make sure none of the wild shirtless people come trying to take her stuff. But how does she have all of this, while everyone else is slumming it?
That’s the part I’m really obsessing over, and definitely not Janney in that blue get-up with a martini glass in her hand. Definitely not that. Now somebody open a window in here or something.
The Dog Stars is set to release in theaters on August 28, 2026.