‘The Dog Stars’ Just Became One of Ridley Scott’s Biggest Box Office Disasters in Years
Ridley Scott has built a career on ambitious, big-swing filmmaking, and not every swing connects. His latest effort was always going to face a tough opening weekend competing against two of the year’s biggest theatrical juggernauts, but even by cautious expectations, the results have turned into a genuinely rough outcome for one of Hollywood’s most respected directors.
That film is ‘The Dog Stars,’ a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Jacob Elordi as Hig, a lonely survivor navigating a devastated world alongside his dog after picking up a mysterious broadcast signal that sends him searching for its source. The ensemble cast also includes Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, Allison Janney and Benedict Wong, backed by cinematography from Oscar winner Erik Messerschmidt and a marketing push that leaned heavily into its IMAX presentation.
Despite that pedigree, the film has landed with a resounding thud at the box office. ‘The Dog Stars’ opened to just $8 million domestically from 3,330 locations, landing in a distant fifth-place finish for the weekend against a reported production budget north of $80 million, according to Variety.
That kind of gap between budget and opening weekend gross places the film among Scott’s biggest financial misfires in years. It marks his lowest domestic debut since 2021’s ‘The Last Duel,’ which opened to just $4.7 million against a roughly $100 million budget, and stands well below even his 2013 thriller ‘The Counselor,’ which eventually closed its run around $16 million domestically.
Reception hasn’t helped matters either. The film currently holds a 40% score on Rotten Tomatoes and received a lukewarm C-plus grade from opening weekend CinemaScore polls, numbers that suggest the disappointing box office isn’t simply a matter of bad timing against tougher competition.
Financial expectations for the film were always going to be difficult to clear given its scale. With production costs reportedly ranging between $70 million and $110 million before marketing and distribution expenses, industry estimates suggest the film would need to gross well over $150 million worldwide just to approach breaking even, a target that now looks increasingly unlikely given its sluggish start.
The disappointing result also arrives at an awkward moment for 20th Century Studios more broadly. While parent company Disney has scored major hits this year with releases like ‘Toy Story 5’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2,’ it has also weathered other high-profile stumbles, including the live-action ‘Moana’ and ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu,’ both of which fell well short of their production budgets.
Scott’s film also had the misfortune of opening the same weekend as two genuine box office phenomena, with ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ extending its record-setting reign and the long-shelved ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ pulling off a surprise comeback story of its own. Against that backdrop, ‘The Dog Stars’ never stood much of a chance to break through.
Whatever happens during the rest of its theatrical run, the film’s opening weekend numbers already mark one of the more painful chapters in Scott’s otherwise decorated filmography.
What Went Wrong With The Dog Stars at the Box Office?
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