--- title: 'Jacob Elordi''s The Dog Stars Opens as Ridley Scott Makes His Bet' type: 'blog post' section: 'Industry' format: 'Editorial feature' standfirst: 'Ridley Scott had been eyeing Jacob Elordi before The Dog Stars came along, and the film finally gave them a reason to meet. Early reviews are mixed, which makes the movie look less like an easy crowd-pleaser than a hard sell built on mood, loss, and one young actor trying to keep moving past Euphoria.' author: 'CinePixo' published: '2026-09-01' updated: '2026-09-01' about_people: - 'Ridley Scott' - 'Jacob Elordi' about_films: - 'The Martian (2015)' tags: - 'Jacob Elordi The Dog Stars Ridley Scott' - 'The Dog Stars mixed reviews August 2026' - 'Ridley Scott Jacob Elordi interview' - 'The Dog Stars cast Guy Pearce Josh Brolin' - 'Jacob Elordi post-apocalyptic thriller' sources: - 'https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/jacob-elordis-the-dog-stars-bombs-as-audiences-redefine-what-they-want/ar-AA2bidrz' - 'https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2026/08/28/how-ridley-scott-spotted-jacob-elordi-as-his-dog-stars-star/' - 'https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/jacob-elordi-why-dog-stars-234415974.html' - 'https://www.aol.com/articles/dog-stars-best-movie-ridley-133400000.html' canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/blog/jacob-elordis-the-dog-stars-opens-as-ridley-scott-makes-his-bet' publisher: 'CinePixo' --- # Jacob Elordi's The Dog Stars Opens as Ridley Scott Makes His Bet *Ridley Scott had been eyeing Jacob Elordi before The Dog Stars came along, and the film finally gave them a reason to meet. Early reviews are mixed, which makes the movie look less like an easy crowd-pleaser than a hard sell built on mood, loss, and one young actor trying to keep moving past Euphoria.* By CinePixo, 2026-09-01 · Industry On August 28, 2026, *The Dog Stars* was in theaters, and the most interesting thing around Ridley Scott’s latest film is not the end-of-the-world setup. It is Scott’s long interest in Jacob Elordi. Hollywood Outbreak reported that Scott had wanted to find a project for him for some time, and AOL’s Evolve Editors said Scott went so far as to call the film the best he has made since *The Martian*. That is a high bar. It also tells you what Scott thinks he found here: not a novelty casting move, but the right actor for a stripped-down post-pandemic story. ## Ridley Scott Had Jacob Elordi in Mind Before *The Dog Stars* Scott has spent decades working with major stars, but he clearly still watches for younger actors who can carry more than one kind of role. Hollywood Outbreak traced Elordi’s run from *Euphoria* to films like *Saltburn*, *Frankenstein*, and *Wuthering Heights*, noting that he has already built a career wider than the television breakout that first made him familiar. That range seems to be the point. AOL reported that Scott singled Elordi out as someone who looks ready for a bigger stage, and the director also pointed to a shared Australian background. More important than the flattery is the timing. Plenty of admired actors never find the right role with a director who wants them. In this case, Scott says the role in *The Dog Stars* finally made the pairing make sense. That matters because Elordi is still in the middle of shedding one identity and taking on another. A young actor who reaches a huge audience through one series can get boxed in fast. Scott did not seem interested in that version of Elordi. He seems to have been watching for the one who could carry a movie set in ash and silence. ![Ridley Scott](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/4cac0359-d6af-4fb1-8294-f2ccef691834.webp) *Photo: Raph_PH · [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ridley_Scott_At_BFI_-_BFI_Southbank_-_Saturday_4th_October_2025.jpg)* ## Hig, Jasper, and a World Stripped Bare Yahoo’s Annabel Rackham described Elordi’s character, Hig, as a former mechanic and civilian pilot who flies over Colorado with his dog Jasper, searching for something better. The setting is the 2030s, after a deadly flu has wiped out everyone who is not immune, leaving behind a society edged toward anarchy. The film also includes Guy Pearce, Margaret Qualley, and Josh Brolin, with Pearce playing Pops, the survivor who meets Hig after an emergency landing. This is not a bulky disaster movie with endless noise. The Yahoo report makes clear that the film keeps returning to abandoned cities, ruined land, and the daily hunt for food and medicine. It is an apocalypse picture where the emptiness matters as much as the plot. Elordi told the BBC, as Yahoo relayed it, that the film is about the human condition: people still looking for something when almost everything else has gone. That idea sits close to the center of the performance. Elordi said the role connected with his own sense that comfort rarely stops people from asking for more. Pearce made a similar point from another angle, saying the film matters because it reminds viewers how much of life is taken for granted. The movie’s world is bleak, but it is not built only to punish its characters. It is built to ask what is left when the ordinary breaks. ![The Martian (2015)](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/4f94fff9-dd37-45ea-8d49-c051d5844b23.webp) *Photo: © the film's rights holders · Poster shown for identification · [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film))* ![Jacob Elordi in 2025](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/09/8988dc4e-db47-4648-8649-043d2169d37e.webp) *Photo: Raph_PH · [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacob_Elordi.jpg)* ## The Reviews Treat It as a Mood Piece, Not a Crowd Pleaser The first criticism has not lined up around a single verdict, and that is useful context for the film’s place in the market. Yahoo noted that *The Guardian* gave it three stars and found it limp and slow. *The Hollywood Reporter* was kinder, calling it muted but never dull and an appealingly mellow watch. *Empire* landed on two stars and said the film wants to separate surviving from thriving without sounding fully convinced by its own answer. *The Telegraph* also gave it three stars, describing the action bursts as less scary than silly, though still good for waking up Scott’s campfire apocalypse. Taken together, those reactions suggest a film that is being received less as a big event than as a measured, uncertain piece of genre work. That is not the same thing as failure, but it is not the easy route either. Scott may have wanted a role that fit Elordi, and on paper he found one. What the critics are describing, though, is a movie that keeps its volume down and leaves the audience to decide how much of its sadness they want to sit with. ## Jacob Elordi Keeps Moving Past *Euphoria* Elordi has been making that move for a while now. *Euphoria* brought him a huge television audience. *Saltburn* pushed him into very different territory. *Frankenstein* gave him his first Oscar nomination earlier this year, and *Wuthering Heights* added another major credit to a résumé that no longer reads like a former TV breakout’s neat transition plan. AOL reported that Elordi said he would have taken any movie Scott sent him, and that working with a pioneer of the industry in his own lifetime felt hard to believe. That is not just career-polish talk. It shows where he is now: in the stage where a role matters partly because of who offered it, and partly because it lets him keep widening the distance between himself and the part that made him famous. Scott clearly thought *The Dog Stars* was the right place for that next step. The movie is in theaters now, and the first response says more about its hushed mood than about any easy crowd reaction. ## How this piece was made **Format:** Editorial feature ## In this piece - [Ridley Scott](https://cinepixo.com/people/ridley-scott) - [Jacob Elordi](https://cinepixo.com/people/jacob-elordi) - 2015 · [The Martian](https://cinepixo.com/movies/the-martian-2015) ## Sources - https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/jacob-elordis-the-dog-stars-bombs-as-audiences-redefine-what-they-want/ar-AA2bidrz - https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2026/08/28/how-ridley-scott-spotted-jacob-elordi-as-his-dog-stars-star/ - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/jacob-elordi-why-dog-stars-234415974.html - https://www.aol.com/articles/dog-stars-best-movie-ridley-133400000.html Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours. Source: https://cinepixo.com/blog/jacob-elordis-the-dog-stars-opens-as-ridley-scott-makes-his-bet Written for CinePixo. Nothing on this page is imported prose.