Words: Josh Lee
It’s now just over a month until the year’s most anticipated film, Gladiator II, hits the big screen. The follow-up to Ridley Scott’s seminal original – which was released in 2000 and is still revered for Russell Crowe’s singular lead and the masterly way in which the beautiful score was offset with bloodied, barbaric sequences – will slingshot audiences back to ancient Rome, this time with Paul Mescal as the focal point. With two action-filled trailers having already been released, we break down what audiences can expect from the epic sequel. Swords at the ready…
When will it be released?
As things currently stand, Gladiator II is set to arrive in the UK on 15 November; it will then land in North America on 22 November.
Who’s directing?
Ridley Scott. Unlike with Blade Runner 2049, which saw Denis Villeneuve build on Scott’s work, the upcoming historical blockbuster will see the English filmmaker return to the main chair. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever made,” Scott recently admitted.
Who’s starring – and what’s the plot?
Details of the script haven’t been fully delineated, but, going off the fairly intense trailers and a few teaser pieces, the main bones are all there.
Taking place roughly 20 years after the original ended, when Crowe’s general-turned-slave-turned-gladiator Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix’s villainous Commodus lie dead in the arena following one-on-one combat, Mescal will take the central role as Lucius.
Portrayed as a young boy in the original by Spencer Treat Clark, Lucius is known as the son of noblewoman Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, who reprises her role for the sequel) and as the nephew of Commodus. He was an avid enthusiast of Maximus in the first film, viewing him the way in which children nowadays admire their footballing heroes, and it was essentially confirmed in the latest trailer that Lucius is the son of Maximus: “Take your father’s strength… his name was Maximus, and I see him in you,” Lucilla says.
It is said that the film begins at a point when Lucius is living in Numidia, on the northern coast of Africa, a region he was sent to as a child so that he could be out of the Roman Empire’s reach. However, his peaceful life is brutally upended when Roman conquerors arrive, led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), and imprisonment follows, bringing him back to Rome and into the gladiatorial cycle. As the trailers suggest, violent, epic set-pieces will be in full flow – most notable among all the highlights is when a rhino is ridden into the Colosseum.
Other key cast members include: Denzel Washington as power broker Macrinus; Joseph Quinn as co-emperor Geta; Fred Hechinger as co-emperor Caracalla; and Derek Jacobi as senator Gracchus.
The best quotes from the trailers
- “You have something in you… rage. Never let it go. It will carry you to greatness”
- “You will be my instrument”
- “Whose head could I give you that would satisfy this fury?”
- “The greatest temple Rome ever built… the Colosseum. Because this is what they believe in: power”
- “They can eat war”
- “This is about survival… survive!”
- “I will not waste another generation of young men for their vanity”
- “Strength and honour”
- “The god’s have spoken!!!!!!!!!”
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