Josh Brolin and Jacob Elordi star in Ridley Scott’s newest film, “The Dog Stars.” The film is scheduled for release later this summer and tells the story of a horrific flu that’s nearly wiped out all of mankind. Josh Brolin and Jacob Elordi’s characters navigate the aftermath while searching for a better life.
While fans are eagerly anticipating the film, Josh Brolin admits he almost didn’t make it through filming. In fact, he almost walked off the set during the first day.
Josh Brolin Didn’t See Eye-to-Eye With Ridley Scott At First
Filming for “The Dog Stars” took place in the spring of 2025. At the time, Josh Brolin was in the middle of back-to-back projects. He initially felt excited about Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic film, then quickly got cold feet.
“Ridley was talking a lot of stories and not really rehearsing, and it bugged me out, and I got really scared,” the actor recalled while speaking with Empire.
“I went back, called my agent and said, ‘I want out. Something’s really wrong, and I’ve got to get the [expletive] out of here,'” Brolin continued. “Luckily my agent is a close friend and he said, ‘Rest for a day.’ I was like, ‘No, man, I know what the [expletive] you’re doing. It’s not one of those day-things.’ And I was right.”
The actor admitted he simply wasn’t used to Ridley Scott’s directing style. Scott notoriously shies away from long rehearsals and prefers to use the raw energy of an initial read-through instead.
Once Josh Brolin saw results of Scott’s work, he began to change his mind.
“[Ridley] goes, ‘Come here,’ and he brought me into his trailer, and played the scene we had just finished,” the 58-year-old remembered. “It was a really good, very dynamic scene between me and Jacob [Elordi], and he goes, ‘Okay?’ I go, ‘Okay,’ and then I started to feed off that.”
“The Goonies” star took a few days to mentally reset and readjust. Afterward, he felt glad he stayed.
“I got super into it because it was stratospherically creative and stratospherically dangerous,” Brolin told the outlet. “It was like, ‘This is what I’ve been asking for but now I’m getting it, I’m fighting it, because there’s zero comfort in it.’ It became one of the more creative, satisfying projects that I’ve ever been involved with.”
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Amid the rigorous filming schedule, Josh Brolin plans on taking a much-needed break. In 2025, he starred in “Wake Up Dead Man” and “The Running Man.” His upcoming film, “Whalefall” will hit theaters shortly after “The Dog Stars.”
As soon as things slow down a bit, Brolin is going to rest and reset.
“We’re having to promote, and we’re promoting, and it’s great and all that, and then I’m going to take a much longer break,” the actor told Collider in November. “And forget ‘deserved’ or any of it. I just think it’s good to kind of inhale real life and then have something to bring back to this.”
“The Dog Stars” hits theaters on August 28, 2026.
