Ridley Scott’s pandemic thriller, The Dog Stars, adds some significant star power today with Margaret Qualley (The Substance, Kinds of Kindness, Drive-Away Dolls), Josh Brolin (The Goonies, Dune: Part Two, No Country for Old Men), and Guy Pearce (Memento, The Brutalist, Iron Man 3) joining Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, Wuthering Heights, Euphoria) for an epic that finds a civilian pilot living a lonely life on an abandoned Colorado airbase with his dog and a hard-as-nails ex-marine. When a band of scavengers called The Reapers invades their space, Hig and his compatriots must prepare for battle.
The Dog Stars hails from 20th Century Studios and is based on the 2012 novel by Peter Heller (Burn, The River, The Painter, The Last Ranger). Initially, Scott was reteaming with Gladiator II star Paul Mescal for The Dog Stars, but scheduling conflicts with his part in Sam Mendes’ Beatles anthology kept him from participating. Sources say Mescal plays Paul McCartney in Mendes’ upcoming film, making him essential to the project.
Here’s a synopsis of Heller’s novel:
“Hig’s wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley. But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.”
Mark L. Smith, who wrote The Revenant and the Netflix mini-series American Primeval, is partnering with Christopher Wilkinson (Ali, Nixon, Birth of the Dragon) to pen the screenplay. Ridley Scott will likely hunker down on The Dog Stars after completing work on You Should Be Dancing, a biopic focusing on one of the best-selling groups of all time, The Bee Gees.
Scott is assembling quite the cast for The Dog Stars. Margaret Qualley turned heads in recent months while starring opposite Demi Moore in Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. At the same time, Josh Brolin continues to sharpen his skills for the next chapter of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man. Guy Pearce stars in the potential Oscar contender The Brutalist, with a starring role alongside Hannah Waddingham, Keira Knightley, Kaya Scodelario, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Simon Stone’s The Woman in Cabin 10.
On a scale of one to ten, what is your hype level for The Dog Stars? Let us know in the comments section below.
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