Sir Ridley Scott has faced plenty of criticism over the years. With over 60 years of experience in filmmaking, the Alien director has seen his share of ups and downs at the box office. Critics, however, are calling his most recent works more down than up. And it’s easy to see why. His latest works, which include House of Gucci, Napoleon, and even Gladiator II, failed to impress moviegoers and journalists. And, unfortunately, it looks like that streak might continue with Scott’s The Dog Stars. In fact, one critic who has seen the upcoming film believes it might actually be time for the 88-year-old filmmaker to retire.
Scott’s latest film, The Dog Stars, hasn’t had the best journey to release so far. After multiple audience screenings, its release date has been pushed to late-August 2026, which we all known is a relatively quiet time of the year for movie theaters.
Now, The InSneider has shared his reaction to the film: “I saw Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, and I hate to say it, but it’s time for Sir Ridley to retire. He won’t… but he should.”
But while that might sound like a really brutal review of the sci-fi film, it aligns with what WorldofReel’s Jordan Ruimy has been hearing from insiders for a few months now. It’s not good.
And now Ruimy has doubled down. In a new report, he’s officially stamped The Dog Stars with a red flag — pointing out that the film not only tested terribly and carries an unfavorable late-August release date, but has also been confirmed to carry a budget of $110 million. Ruimy goes as far as to predict the film could bomb, suggesting it may not even gross $70 million worldwide, and questions whether there’s much of an audience for it at all. A new trailer has since dropped, and early reaction suggests it looks generic — not exactly the word you want attached to a $110M production.
What’s surprising is that The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic film adapted from Peter Heller’s best-selling novel of the same name, has a really strong cast that includes big names like Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, and Guy Pearce — with Benedict Wong also part of the ensemble. The screenplay comes from Mark L. Smith, known for The Revenant and Twisters, with Harry Gregson-Williams (Gladiator II) composing the score. So we know that it’s not the performances or pedigree that are the issue here, but rather the story or maybe the filmmaking itself. One viewer who has seen the film said that it felt like it was slowly building towards something, but then suddenly stops abruptly. According to him, it felt like the film was “missing 20-30 minutes” towards the end.
Of course that doesn’t seem too out of place given its very simple premise: a widowed pilot walks a pandemic-ravaged world all alone, with only his dog by his side, when a radio signal sends them into the unknown.
It sounds like a film that could possibly be slow. But it also sounds like the type of film that sci-fi fans love. Like Scott’s The Martian, for example.
What’s even crazier is that Scott isn’t second-guessing himself or his skill and has already said that The Dog Stars might be “maybe my best movie.” He even boasted in an interview with Dazed that he completed the film in just 34 days.
UPDATE (1 July 2026): The behind-the-scenes drama around The Dog Stars gets even more interesting. One of the film’s stars, Josh Brolin, told Empire Magazine that he nearly walked off the film after a single day on set because of his frustration with Scott’s loose approach to filming. Brolin admitted it “bugged me out” and sent him into a panic that ended with a phone call to his agent demanding to be released from The Dog Stars.
He reportedly said he wanted out and that he felt there was “something’s really wrong.” His agent urged him to sleep on it, but Brolin was really angry and pushed back. He eventually found his footing, and looking back, described Scott’s process as “stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous”. But in the same breath, he also called it a “satisfying” experience in the end.
Scott has gained a reputation for this sort of process over the last few years. Cinematographer John Mathieson, a longtime Scott collaborator, previously described him as having become “lazy” and “quite impatient”. Of course, Mathieson hasn’t worked with the director since.
We’ll have to wait until August 28 to see whether Jeff Sneider (from The InSneider) or Sir Ridley Scott is correct about The Dog Stars.
The Dog Stars opens in theaters on August 28, 2026.
