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Hideo Kojima’s brief review for Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars betrays how he really feels about the divisive post-apocalyptic movie… At least, that’s what fans are saying.
Scott’s latest movie hasn’t exactly been well-received. The movie was a box office bomb, earning just $19 million during its global opening. Critics’ opinions have been similarly brutal, with IGN’s Leanne Butkovic scoring the film a 5 out of 10, calling it a “post-apocalyptic survival story that’s encased in three layers of emotionally protective bubble wrap with a wild third-act twist.”
Fans believe Kojima, an acclaimed video game director and film connoisseur, feels much the same way, owing to a trend they’ve observed in his social media posts discussing movies he’s recently watched. If you’re familiar with Kojima’s online presence, you’ll know that the man isn’t very fussed about public perception (some of his retweets are straight up WILD), but when it comes to expressing his dislike for films, fans claim that he often doesn’t say anything of substance at all.
Usually, when Kojima likes a movie, he’ll create a lengthy post diving into everything he admired about it, as seen in the high praise he gave to Kane Parson’s Backrooms. However, for The Dog Stars, he merely remarked on what he initially expected from the film… and that’s about it.
“Peter Heller’s original novel, The Dog Stars (previously published in Japanese under the title Itsuka Boku ga Kaeru Basho / The Place I’ll Return to Someday), has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, unread. Since it’s literary fiction rather than science fiction, I went to see the movie, picturing it might be something along the lines of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The music was by Harry. They weren’t selling (didn’t make) a pamphlet for the film,” he said on his English X account.
It was a strikingly bland post in comparison to his other, far more colorful reviews of films he distinctly loves — and because of this, fans are convinced that Kojima, much like other reviewers, wasn’t its biggest fan. Though of course, we can’t outright say that, given he didn’t say as much in his post.
Peter Heller’s original novel, “The Dog Stars” (previously published in Japanese under the title Itsuka Boku ga Kaeru Basho / The Place I’ll Return to Someday), has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, unread. Since it’s literary fiction rather than science fiction, I went to… pic.twitter.com/irC8ZjoMrH
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) August 30, 2026
“You can tell he didn’t like it because he said nothing about the actual film, lol,” one user said in the comments.
“He said nothing about the film so he hated it lmao,” another joked.
“Ridley’s a genius, he created a genre of Kojima tweets. Saying nothing about the actual film while talking about it,” yet another said.
Scott’s name has been all over social media as of late, in part due to The Dog Stars as well as several interviews he’s given to the press. In one of these interviews, Scott confirmed that he is developing a sequel to Alien: Covenant with Michael Fassbender, partly because he believes the Alien franchise he created “needs some help,” as he felt Alien: Romulus was just “OK.”
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
