Ridley Scott's 'The Dog Stars' Receives 42% Positive Score on Rotten Tomatoes

Ridley Scott's next feature, The Dog Stars, is set to open in theaters on Aug. 28, 2026. The post-apocalyptic adaptation of Peter Heller's 2012 novel stars Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley and Josh Brolin. Rotten Tomatoes has published an early Tomatometer rating based on 36 critic reviews, with only 42 percent classified as positive. If the score remains unchanged, it would rank among the ten lowest-rated films in Scott's career on the site.

Critics offered mixed reactions. Robert Daniels of RogerEbert noted that “it takes more effort to make a boring post-apocalyptic survivalist action film than to make a good one,” suggesting the director “must've been working overtime” to achieve quality. August Hammel of AwardsWatch described the movie as “too crisp and clean” for a throwback style, while Nadine Whitney of The Curb wrote that Scott “does nothing to prove he still has the juice to make something that matters.” Monica Castillo of AV Club called the film “messy” and “one of [Scott's] worst misfires,” though she did not label it his darkest work.

The early reception arrives as the film faces strong competition from upcoming releases such as Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Destin Daniel Cretton's Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Jacob Chase's Insidious: Out of the Further. The final box-office impact remains uncertain.