Director Ridley Scott has delayed his Bee Gees biopic to work with Paul Mescal again, this time on the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, The Dog Stars.
As Ridley Scott revealed to Film Stories recently, his slate now includes a sci-fi project for us to get excited about, and it looks like the film in question will be coming sooner rather than later. According to World Of Reel, Scott has elected to delay You Should Be Dancing, his planned Bee Gees biopic and reunite with his Gladiator II star, Paul Mescal to make The Dog Stars.
Based on the novel by Peter Heller, the tale is set in ‘post-pandemic Colorado and the story follows Hig as he leads a solitary existence in an airplane hangar, with only his dog and a gruff gunman for company. His quiet life is disrupted when he intercepts a mysterious transmission on his Cessna’s radio, sparking a journey to uncover its origin.’
Mescal is set to play Hig, ‘a widowed pilot and one of the few survivors in the world’. Clearly the pair have hit it off while making Gladiator II, and the thought of Scott returning with an original science fiction film is a happy one indeed, given that this is the director who gave us both Alien, Blade Runner and 2015’s hit Andy Weir adaptation, The Martian.
Production is reportedly set to begin next spring, with the script coming from Mark L Smith, who penned Twisters and The Revenant. Although Scott has a full slate that includes Gladiator III, Freewalkers, Bomb, and a Battle of Britain movie, he’s also 87 and despite being as feisty as ever on his promotional turns for Gladiator II, we’re sure that most fans of his films are probably glad his eye has been caught by this project rather than a musical biopic.
We’ll bring you more on The Dog Stars as we hear it, given that both he and Mescal are both on the promotional trail for Gladiator II, more questions about the project will be coming their way.
