Elordi & Brolin Star in 'Dog Stars' Final Trailer
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- The Dog Stars arrives in theaters August 28, directed by Ridley Scott and adapted from Peter Heller's novel, with a screenplay by Mark L. Smith.
- Jacob Elordi plays pilot Hig, who reminisces about life before the end — kissing his wife, playing with his dog — while Josh Brolin's voiceover notes that 'the world that was doesn't exist' over a shot of wild dogs running past Denver City Hall.
- Josh Brolin plays Bangley, a military survivalist who has built a homestead to outlast the apocalypse, at one point wearing dark face paint to conceal himself in the dark.
- Margaret Qualley plays Cima, whom Hig locates after hearing her voice on the radio, establishing immediate trust — but Guy Pearce's character refuses to trust Hig because 'he's an unknown' and 'we have rules about how to deal with unknowns.'
- Benedict Wong and Allison Janney also star, with the trailer scored to Nine Inch Nails' 'The Day The World Went Away.'
- The film's infected survivors — with dark veins bulging from their faces — resemble a mix of zombies and The Last of Us clickers, while the central question Heller poses is whether humanity is a choice in a world built for survival.
Why it matters: Ridley Scott directing a Peter Heller adaptation with a theatrical August 28 release date gives a prestige filmmaker and a $150M-scale genre cast to a survival story whose tagline — 'survival is an instinct, but humanity is a choice' — is the kind of thematic hook that drives word-of-mouth beyond opening weekend.
