Ridley Scott returns to science fiction films after nearly a decade with a dystopian thriller the prolific director-producer and his starry cast say carries a message of hope.
The "Alien", "Gladiator" and "The Martian" filmmaker's latest movie "The Dog Stars" is based on Peter Heller's 2012 book of the same name and set in a post-apocalyptic world.
Jacob Elordi plays Hig, a mechanic who has survived a pandemic that wiped out most of humanity, including his wife. He is holed up at an abandoned airport in Erie, Colorado, accompanied by his aging dog and ex-military man Bangley, played by Josh Brolin.
Hig regularly sets off in an old yellow Cessna in search of other survivors and supplies. When he comes across a patchy radio transmission and the mountain hide-out of Cima (Margaret Qualley) and Pops (Guy Pearce), he finds respite and trouble.
Attending the film's world premiere in London on Thursday, Scott said he jumped on the project after being sent screenwriter Mark L. Smith's adaptation.
"When I get science fiction which works on paper, you have to pay attention. I then react intuitively, and so when I'm half-way through a script like that I start to perspire in case the writer drops the ball. He didn't, so here we are," the 88-year-old filmmaker said.
"There have been so many zombie movies. There are no zombies in this," added Scott, who instead wanted to include optimism, which he said was "essential".
Most of "The Dog Stars" was filmed on location in Italy and shot on multiple cameras.
"This was huge. Ridley is the king of epic, so everything was big," said "Frankenstein" and "Euphoria" star Elordi, who enjoyed getting to "spend a lot of time outside" and working with his canine co-star Rak Jasper.
"Rak Jasper has this incredible team of trainers that did all the work and I really had to just be there with a treat in my pocket," said Elordi.
Heller set no conditions on the big screen adaptation and was "blown away" by the finished film.
"Cinema is a completely different discipline, it has its own demands," he said. "The power of the message that we have to keep our hearts open and take risks to love each other is in the movie and that's the main deal."
"It definitely centres on hope, human decency, human connection in devastating times," added Benedict Wong, who plays a member of a Mennonite community. "That's a leaf out of this book that we can all take and definitely something we really need in our times now."
"The Dog Stars" begins its global theatrical rollout on August 26.
