5 Reasons Why Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars Flopped At The Box Office

Despite having the might of Disney's 20th Century Studios and a legendary director behind it,"The Dog Stars" couldn't find much love at the box office. Hailing from Ridley Scott, a man who has made great sci-fi movies such as "Alien" and "Blade Runner," the film flat-out bombed in its debut. And while the summer 2026 box office has been great in general, this was a sour way to help end the season.

"The Dog Stars" opened to $8 million domestically to go with $11.3 million internationally, giving it a disastrous $19.3 million global start. (For context, the film's budget is said to be at least $70 million, although it may be as high as $110 million.) It placed number five on the charts behind "Insidious: Out of the Further" ($10.1 million) on its second weekend and well below the once canceled Looney Tunes pic "Coyote vs. Acme" ($15.9 million), which landed at number two on the domestic box office charts. Elsewhere, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" ($22.2 million) came in at number one for a fifth weekend in a row.

So, what went wrong? How did Disney make such a grave miscalculation? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "The Dog Stars" flopped at the box office in its opening weekend. Let's get into it.

Even though "The Dog Stars" is based on the novel of the same name by Peter Heller, as a movie, it ostensibly plays like an original for most audiences. In non-franchise cases, it takes a lot to get people off the couch these days (like "Project Hail Mary," for example). In those cases, the word-of-mouth is generally effusive, with must-see buzz abound. That's not what happened here, though. Not even close.

Instead, Ridley Scott's post-apocalyptic adaptation currently has a 40% critical approval score on Rotten Tomatoes to go with a so-so 71% audience rating. It also earned a downright lousy C+ CinemaScore grade, which is not good news for its ability to leg out in the coming weeks.

Scott's film centers on Hig (Jacob Elordi), a young pilot who, together with a military survivalist, Bangley (Josh Brolin), has carved out an efficient but isolated homestead in a brutal post-apocalyptic world. One day, however, a mysterious radio transmission spurs Hig to venture into the unknown in search of the hope and humanity he still believes exists. Margaret Qualley ("The Substance"), Guy Pearce ("The Brutalist"), Benedict Wong ("Doctor Strange"), and Allison Janney ("Mom") also star.

/Film's Chris Evengelista called "The Dog Stars" a "post-apocalyptic oddity" in his review. The main point is that this isn't some late-career gem that Scott delivered only for it to be ignored. It's more of a swing and a miss that will probably become a streaming curiosity for most viewers down the line.

On paper, a late August release seemed about right for a film like "The Dog Stars." With the summer's biggest and brightest movies in the rearview mirror, it felt like the kind of thing that could, in a best case scenario, be positioned to leg out into the early part of the fall. In practice, though, Ridley Scott's latest was straight-up overshadowed by some of those bigger, better movies.

"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" recently became the eighth movie to make $2 billion or more at the box office. Today, it will become the third-biggest movie of all time, overtaking James Cameron's "Titanic." It's the most excited audiences have been for a Marvel movie in the 2020s. That didn't help. Nor did the fact that the "canceled movie finally gets a release" narrative propelled "Coyote vs. Acme" higher. That movie also earned far better reviews.

Not to mention, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" has been ruling the box office since it debuted in July. It added another $14.3 million despite having played in theaters for six weekends at this point, crossing the $1.5 billion mark globally. To a lesser degree, even Roadside's horror comedy "Buddy" ($5.3 million) over-performed, which took some additional steam away when it came to audiences who were in search of R-rated fare.

Even stuff like "Tony" has done well in expansion, benefitting from solid reviews. It all overshadowed this big-budget gamble, which didn't work nearly as well as Disney had hoped.

There's no denying that 20th Century Studios and Ridley Scott managed to assemble a heck of a cast for "The Dog Stars," including multiple Oscar winners and nominees. An appealing ensemble can often do more for a movie's commercial prospects than any one star can. Unfortunately, this one really hinged on the presumed, potential star power of Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley. And with all due respect, neither of them are surefire box office draws. At least not yet.

Elordi is on the shortlist to be the next James Bond. He broke out in "Euphoria" and had a pretty big hit to his name earlier this year with "Wuthering Heights," as well as last year's Oscar-nominated "Frankenstein." However, he's been in projects thus far that very well may have worked whether or not he was the central star. Timothée Chalamet, on the other hand, has made a pretty strong case that audiences will turn out because of him.

Similarly, Qualley broke big when she wound up in the horror hit "The Substance," which was one of the big winners at the 2025 Oscars despite only taking home one award. Outside of that, though, she hasn't had much commercial success, appearing in smaller movies like "Honey, Don't" and "Drive-Away Dolls," plus an occasional supporting role in a hit like "Poor Things."

All of this to say, neither of this movie's central stars are big enough draws on their own to overcome negative reviews. They may bring added appeal to certain audiences, but they're not big enough to give something a must-see label sight unseen.

With any big-budget, non-franchise movie, marketing is absolutely going to be key. "The Dog Stars" isn't a film that sells itself. Audiences need something to hook into. "Obsession" made $500 million globally at the box office, yes, because word of mouth was good, but its premise was also sold very well. Similarly, "Project Hail Mary" made a strong case that it was a spectacle worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

"The Dog Stars" was a bit confused in its marketing efforts. It looked like a post-apocalyptic thriller and there's a love story at play, but its trailers didn't do a lot to distinguish the film. Is it a zombie movie? What's its plot really even about? Basically, Disney and 20th Century Studios didn't do a great job of selling what this movie is and why it's worth seeing to the average moviegoer.

Then there's the issue of sheer volume. Generally speaking, a movie of this size warrants a hefty marketing campaign, yet its promotional campaign felt pretty light on Disney's part. Was that the result of the Mouse House trying to be more targeted in its efforts? Or did the studio suspect the film wasn't going to work out and decided to cut its losses in advance, hoping to make up the difference on VOD/streaming down the line? It's hard to say, but, either way, with the benefit of hindsight, the marketing sticks out like a sore thumb.

There is no bigger factor in the downfall of "The Dog Stars" than its production budget. Even on the very low end of estimates, we're talking about a $70 million, non-franchise movie without a strong horror hook or a young adult bend. On the higher end? Very few movies of any kind can justify a $100 million price tag these days, especially outside of major franchises. Setting aside the lousy reviews, the expensive nature of the project put it on an uphill road from the jump.

What this movie really needed was to more closely emulate the best bang-for-buck box office hit of the YA Craze — namely, "The Maze Runner," a film that was made for only $34 million but grossed just shy of $350 million in theaters worldwide. Granted, Ridley Scott doesn't work cheap as a director, and making a large-scale movie in the lower-mid-budget range these days is much easier said than done. All the same, the market just has a very tough time bearing films like this at the moment.

That's not to say Disney and other studios shouldn't try, but it's about mitigating potential problems. Sure, Disney may well have green lit this figuring over/under $90 million was better spent on a theatrical movie from Ridley Scott rather than spending a similar amount on a direct-to-streaming release. This could be viewed as more of a Hulu play that just so happens to be going to theaters. Be that as it may, the money spent here doesn't make sense on paper in its current context.

In the end, this one simply fell victim to the classic "over-spend and under-deliver" trap that so many flops fall into.

"The Dog Stars" is in theaters now.