Josh Brolin nearly walked off The Dog Stars as Ridley Scott ripped up the rulebook on set
On day one, Josh Brolin nearly walked off Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars — find out what pushed him to the brink.
Josh Brolin almost walked off Ridley Scott 's new movie after a single day. Not because the script was bad. Not because he clashed with a co-star. Because Ridley Scott does Ridley Scott things on set, and it straight-up freaked him out. Here's how that went from 'get me out of here' to 'I am all-in' in 24 hours.
Day one with Ridley: pure adrenaline, zero rehearsal
Brolin told Empire he showed up to shoot The Dog Stars and immediately got rattled by Scott's pace and process. Instead of rehearsing, Scott was swapping stories. Cameras were rolling from every angle. It felt chaotic to Brolin, and not in a fun way. He left set, called his agent, and basically tried to quit the 20th Century Studios production on the spot.
'Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing and it bugged me out, and I got really scared.'
'I went back, called my agent and said, "I want out. Something's really wrong, and I've got to get the f*** out of here".'
Sleep on it, watch the dailies, flip the switch
Credit to his rep for telling him to cool off for a day. Scott then brought Brolin into his trailer to watch the fresh dailies. Seeing how the multi-camera chaos actually cuts together — specifically a charged scene with Jacob Elordi — flipped a switch. Brolin realized the method behind the madness and, in his words, started feeding off it. He went from panic to 'super into it' overnight.
So what is The Dog Stars, exactly?
It's Ridley Scott doing post-apocalyptic survival, adapted from Peter Heller's bestselling novel. The setup: after a catastrophic flu wipes out most of civilization, a small-plane pilot named Hig tries to carve out a life on the edge of nowhere.
- Release: In U.S. theaters August 28, 2026 ( new international posters are already out)
- Studio: 20th Century Studios
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Source material: Peter Heller's novel
- Cast: Jacob Elordi as Hig; Josh Brolin co-starring (Empire frames his role as a lead, though the plot centers on Hig)
- Premise: Hig lives in an abandoned airport hangar with his dog and a heavily armed neighbor named Bangley, a former Marine
- Ridley detail you can picture: Hig regularly takes off in a vintage 1956 Cessna to get above the scavengers and the stress
- Inciting jolt: a mysterious voice breaks through his radio, hinting at a safe place near Grand Junction, and he risks everything to chase it
The interesting wrinkle
The story here isn't just the movie — it's the process. Scott's high-energy, multi-camera, talk-don't-rehearse approach shook an Oscar nominee so hard he nearly bailed after day one. Then the footage sold him. If nothing else, that suggests what we see on screen will have that jittery, alive quality Scott loves. We find out August 28.