Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars” Flops With $8M Opening as Critics Call It “Soulless”

Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic drama “The Dog Stars,” adapted from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel and starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin and Margaret Qualley, opened domestically this weekend to just $8 million, badly missing pre-release projections that had placed its debut in the low double digits. The 20th Century Studios release stumbled out of the gate with an $850,000 Thursday preview night, and its opening weekend take landed well below rival newcomer “Coyote vs. Acme,” despite carrying a much bigger budget and starring power [1, 4].

The film currently sits at roughly 36-40% on Rotten Tomatoes after critics panned its screenplay despite praising its cinematography; critic Adam Patla described it as “a well-made but utterly soulless apocalyptic tale” built on a heavy-handed script [2, 3]. Audience reaction has been more divided than critical consensus, with viewers responding positively to Elordi and Qualley’s performances and Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography even as reviewers flagged a lack of chemistry between the film’s central couple [3].

Why It Sucks:

20th Century Studios

• A star-driven bet just missed its target badly. The studio backed a starry, big-budget adaptation with a top director and two in-demand leads, and still opened well under its own low-double-digit projections, turning a marquee late-summer release into a write-down conversation [1, 4].
• Marketing spend now looks hard to recoup. A film built around A-list casting and a celebrated director needs a strong opening to justify its promotional budget, and an $8 million debut against mixed reviews puts that recoupment math in serious jeopardy [1].
• It got outgrossed by an indie film with a fraction of the budget. Finishing behind “Coyote vs. Acme,” a movie a rival studio literally threw away, is an embarrassing benchmark for a major studio’s own tentpole release [1].

Ridley Scott and the Filmmakers

• Another post-“Martian” box office stumble piles onto a pattern. Critics are explicitly framing this as a continuation of Scott’s losing streak since “The Martian,” which puts pressure on a veteran director’s ability to still open a film theatrically [1, 3].
• The script is taking the blame the visuals don’t deserve. Reviewers consistently praise Messerschmidt’s cinematography and Scott’s visual command while singling out the screenplay as “heavy-handed” and unfocused, meaning the director’s craft is being overshadowed by a story that reviewers say drifts and lacks urgency [2, 3].
• A well-cast romance is landing flat with critics. Despite strong individual performances from Elordi, Brolin and Qualley, reviewers describe zero chemistry in the central romantic subplot, undercutting the emotional core the filmmakers built the story around [3].

Jacob Elordi and the Cast

• A high-profile lead role opens to a box office bomb. Elordi is praised individually for leading-man charisma, but starring in a film that misses its box office targets and splits critics is a rough outcome for an actor working to cement himself as a theatrical draw [1, 3].
• Strong reviews for individual performances get buried by the overall verdict. Brolin’s performance is singled out as “a joy to watch,” yet that praise gets lost in headlines dominated by the film’s disappointing opening and middling Rotten Tomatoes score [3, 4].
• The romance at the film’s center is being publicly picked apart. Critics calling out a lack of chemistry between Elordi and Qualley turns what was meant to be the emotional anchor of the film into one of its most criticized elements [3].

Sources & Citations:

[1] Deadline: Box Office: ‘Spider-Man’ No. 1, ‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ $14M+, ‘Dog Stars’ Tanks
[2] MovieWeb: ‘The Dog Stars’ Debuts RT Audience Score After Critics Reject Ridley Scott’s Latest
[3] IndieWire: ‘The Dog Stars’ Review: Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin Can’t Save Ridley Scott’s Bizarrely Inert Post-Apocalypse Movie from Near-Disaster
[4] Rotten Tomatoes: The Dog Stars