To endure the gladiatorial games of the Colosseum as well as fighting a war, the stars of Gladiator II had to rigorously prepare for the amount of stuntwork that awaited them. Paramount Pictures has released this brand-new look with director Ridley Scott and his stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington. The featurette not only shows the amount of fighting and Colosseum matches that audiences are in store for, but the hard training that Mescal and Pascal endured while filming this epic. As Washington puts it, “Pedro and Paul got their ass beat by the best!”

Here is the plot of Gladiator II, as per Paramount: “From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome. Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”

The cast includes Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, with Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington. The screenplay was penned by David Scarpa.

While Ridley Scott and the studio are hyping this film up as the biggest movie either have ever been involved with, many skeptics who are fans of the original still view it as unnecessary as the story had a fitting end with Maximus’ story coming to a close. However, Scott is already intent on turning his saga into a trilogy. As he put it, “I’m already playing with the idea of Gladiator 3. No, seriously. The end of Gladiator II evokes that of the Godfather, with Michael Corleone who ends up with a job he didn’t want, and who wonders, ‘And now, Father, what am I doing? ‘The next film will therefore speak of a man who does not want to be where he is.”

Gladiator II is rated R for “strong bloody violence” and is set to hit theaters on November 22, the same day as Wicked.

The post Get into fighting shape with the stars of Gladiator II in the new training featurette appeared first on JoBlo.

As we head into the late part of the fall, studios are starting to put out their awards-worthy fare, in addition to prestige blockbusters, which they hope will play well throughout the holiday movie season in late November, December and early January. One of the biggest movies coming out this fall, Gladiator II, got its first screenings this weekend, with raves all around for what many are calling director Ridley Scott’s best movie since Black Hawk Down. With October almost finished, we want to know what late fall release has you the most hyped! Take our poll below and let us know!

The post POLL: What late fall release has you the most hyped? appeared first on JoBlo.

Over the past few months, buzz has steadily been building for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II. While various news stories mentioned that the budget for Scott’s Roman epic had spiralled out of control, word from early test screenings suggested that whatever it cost, it might be worth it, with Paramount having enough confidence in the movie that they’re positioning it for awards season with a prime November release date. And now, the studio has finally started showing the film, and critics in attendance raved about what they saw, with many saying it’s Ridley Scott’s best film in many years.

In it, Paul Mescal plays the now-grown Lucius (the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the original), who finds himself forced to fight as a gladiator for Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, a former slave plotting to take control of Rome. Pedro Pascal co-stars as Marcus Acacius, a Roman general Lucius fights in the Colosseum. 

Clayton Davis, the awards editor at Variety (and a key tastemaker during Oscar season) is calling the movie Ridley Scott’s best since Black Hawk Down, writing on X, “I found Paul Mescal’s work as Lucius to be one of the film’s most honest surprises. This is Denzel Washington, having the time of his life in one of his most killer roles yet. A third Oscar could very well come his way. Sound, visuals, costumes, you name it, this movie’s got it. Another blockbuster the Academy can most definitely embrace.”

Influencer Matt Ramos was even more vehement in his praise, not only pegging it as the best film of the year but possibly (in his words) one of the best of all time! He writes, “It’s one of those films that will reinvigorate your love for cinema. It defies expectations, the performances are outstanding (Denzel just locked in another Oscar), the score is just as great as the original, the writing is incredible, & there’s a lot of action on such a massive scale; it’s unreal. I could go on and on but prepare to witness greatness this November.”

Drew Taylor of The Wrap writes, “Rest easy, Romans. #Gladiator2 is the kind of large-scale filmmaking excellence that only Ridley Scott could corral. Everything about it just works. Big #Maverick vibes in its ability to conjure the past while adding something new. Bold, muscular filmmaking from a legendary talent.”

And finally, Scott Mantz of KTLA writes, “GLADIATOR II is indeed the REAL DEAL! An epic sequel worthy of its Oscar-winning predecessor — great action, amazing visual effects, stellar performances across the board (esp. PAUL MESCAL & DENZEL WASHINGTON)! A return to form for director RIDLEY SCOTT! I was ENTERTAINED!”

Indeed, X is loaded with raves from the screening, so it sounds like even if it took Scott nearly a quarter of a century to make a sequel to Gladiator, it might have been well worth the wait!

Gladiator II hits theaters on November 22nd. 

The post Gladiator 2 earns early raves after the first public screening appeared first on JoBlo.

Back in 2000, director Ridley Scott (and screenwriters David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson) took us back to 180 AD for Gladiator, which told the story of Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius (played by Russell Crowe), who is favored by Emperor Marcus Aurelius to be his successor because his own son, Commodus, is unfit to rule. Commodus disagrees, so he murders his father, has Maximus arrested, and has Maximus’s wife and son killed. While Commodus establishes himself as the new emperor, Maximus escapes from captivity – only to be captured again, this time by slavers who sell him off to become a gladiator. Soon he’s fighting in front of Commodus in Rome’s Colosseum… and it all builds up to Commodus challenging Maximus to a duel. Gladiator was a major box office success and racked up multiple Academy Award wins, including Best Picture. So there was already talk of a sequel in 2001, but it ended up taking more than twenty years to get a sequel into production. Gladiator II is now ready to reach theatres, courtesy of Paramount Pictures (domestic) on November 22, 2024 and Universal Pictures (international) on November 15th – so we have put together a list of everything we know about this sequel.

DIRECTOR AND SCRIPT

Ridley Scott always planned to return to the helm for Gladiator II. The hold-up was the script. Since Maximus died at the end of Gladiator, screenwriters found it very difficult to figure out how to continue the story, especially since the initial idea was that Russell Crowe would return as Maximus in some capacity. The first writers to be involved were David Franzoni and John Logan, who crafted a story that would pick up fifteen years after the events of the first movie and center on the Lucius character, who was a child played by Spencer Treat Clark in Gladiator. While the Praetorian Guards rule Rome, Lucius would be trying to find out the truth of his parentage because the idea was always that, even though his mother (Commodus’s sister Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen) would say that his father was the late Lucius Verus, it was actually Maximus. This story would have allowed for some prequel elements, but would have also seen Maximus being resurrected… somehow. According to Crowe, there was a time when they were just going to have Maximus rise from the dead like Jesus Christ.

Musician Nick Cave was hired to write his own version of the script, and this one has gotten a lot of attention because how over-the-top and insane it was. Cave’s title of choice was Christ Killer, and would have (as Cave explained on Marc Maron’s podcast) “found Maximus in purgatory as he’s sent down by the gods, who are dying in Heaven because there’s this one god, there’s this Christ character, down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the many gods are dying so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and his followers. Maximus was tricked by the gods, as the Christ character that they’ve sent him to kill was his own son, the one who died in the first movie. The end of the film would have found Maximus living forever, fighting battles throughout history, such as the Crusades, World War II, and Vietnam, before ending up as a General in the modern-day Pentagon.”

Things got quiet for a decade after Cave turned in his script, but in 2017 Scott started pushing the sequel forward again while swearing that he had found a way to bring Maximus back that would make sense. The Town and Top Gun: Maverick writer Peter Craig was hired to write a new script that would again center on Lucius, this time 25 to 30 years after the events of Gladiator. Craig found the idea tough to crack, so then Scott brought on his Napoleon writer David Scarpa. And it’s Scarpa who wrote the script that finally went into production in 2023. Scott is so proud of the resulting film, he has said that it’s one of the best things he has ever done.

CAST

The long-awaited sequel stars Paul Mescal (Normal People), playing the adult Lucius. One report let us know, “Before he died, Maximus rescued Lucius and his mother from the clutches of the young man’s uncle, Commodus. The event left an impression on Lucius, who aspires to be as formidable as Maximus as he braves a harsh world.” Mescal is joined in the cast by Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Emperor Caracalla (replacing Barry Keoghan in the role, as he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) as Emperor Geta, and – in roles that weren’t specified when their involvement was announced – Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Lior Raz (The Crowded Room), Peter Mensah (Spartacus), and Matt Lucas (Wonka).

May Calamawy (Moon Knight) is in there as well, and while we don’t know who she’s playing, it was said that her character is quite important to the story, so Scott did a “thorough search” before Calamawy earned the role over the course of multiple auditions.

Gladiator cast member Derek Jacobi is reprising the role of Senator Gracchus and Connie Nielsen is back as Lucius’s mother Lucilla. Scott made sure to involve Nielsen as much as possible during the development of the story.

Denzel Washington (American Gangster) is playing someone Scott described to Deadline as being a character who is parallel to Lucius. “The owner of a business that supplied weapons for the Romans, who supplied the oil when they traveled, who supplied the wine they drink. They wouldn’t drink water, they drank wine. When they traveled, who would supply wagons and horses and tack? There had to be the arms dealers of the period; here is a man who already rich from supplying the weapons, the catapults. His hobby is like a racing stable except it’s gladiators. He’s got a stable of 30 or 40 gladiators. He likes to actually see them fight and it evolves that that’s where he came from. He was captured in North Africa, and evolved into a free man because he was a good gladiator. But he hides that because also he’s now realizing the potential of his actual power. He’s wealthier than most senators, so already has thoughts and designs of the possible idea of taking power from these two crazy princes.”

Absent from the cast is Russell Crowe, as Maximus remains in his grave after all. Crowe doesn’t seem pleased that people keep asking him about the sequel – during an appearance at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, he said, “They should be f*cking paying me for the amount of questions I get asked about the f*cking film that I am not even in.” – but he has also said that he thinks it will be “absolutely spectacular” and he’s jealous of the experiences Mescal got to have on set. In an interview with Kyle Meredith, Crowe did indicate that he has issues with the story being told in the sequel. “I’m slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one — because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done. But a couple of the things I’ve heard I’m like, ‘No, no, no, that’s not in the moral journey of that particular character’. But I can’t say anything, it’s not my place, I’m six foot under. So we’ll see what that is like.“

PLOT

Vanity Fair shared plot details, confirming that the story follows Lucius (Mescal), last seen as the young son of Lucilla, Connie Nielsen’s noblewoman from the original movie. Nielsen also returns in the sequel, playing one of the few true-life figures in the otherwise fictional Gladiator storyline, the daughter of the late emperor Marcus Aurelius. As Gladiator II picks up her story, decades have passed and Lucius has come of age far away from his mother. While he was still a child, Lucilla sent him to the northern coast of Africa, to a region called Numidia that was (at that point) just outside the reach of the Roman Empire. He never fully understood why, and as he grew stronger, so did his resentment—even if his mother’s reasons had been pure. Lucius has a wife and child, and lives a relatively peaceful life with them until conquerors from his homeland begin to encroach. Leading that charge is Marcus Acacius (Pascal), a Roman general said to have trained as a junior officer under Crowe’s character, although he wasn’t seen in the first movie. Lucius, once the grandson of the emperor of Rome, finds himself a prisoner of it and is sent to the arena to die. Lucilla doesn’t recognize the battered creature in the Colosseum as her son, and has no idea about the bloody history between him and the man she loves, Marcus Acacius. Naturally, the film eventually finds Lucius and Acacius locking swords again, but then Lucius is prepared to fight everything and everyone.

Vanity Fair also unveiled several images:

PRODUCTION

Gladiator II started filming in May of 2023 – and the production wasn’t an easy ride. A month into filming, six crew members were left with non-life-threatening burn injuries when they were accidentally caught in a large explosion that went off during the filming of a stunt sequence. A studio spokesperson assured The Sun that “The safety and full medical services teams on-site were able to act quickly so that those who were impacted immediately received necessary care. They are all in stable condition and continue to receive treatment.”

Two months into filming, production had to shut down due to the Screen Actors Guild strike. The strike went on from July into November, with Scott using that time to edit together 90 minutes of footage (and possibly film some more footage with non-SAG extras). Before filming could resume in December, the deteriorating sets had to be repaired. A massive recreation of ancient Rome, including a life-size Colosseum, had been built for the production, and these open-air sets had to be left sitting there for four months while the strike played out. So it took some time to fix them up before the cast and crew could get back to work.

The strike helped the budget get out of hand. The movie was supposed to cost $165 million, but The Hollywood Reporter revealed that costs had ballooned to somewhere in the $250 million to $310 million range. For this project alone, the studio lost $600,000 a week during the strike.

There were also rumblings from PETA about the mistreatment of horses and monkeys on the set, but crew members refuted those claims, saying the Humane Society was always on set to oversee the treatment of the animals.

Filming wrapped in January after taking place in England, Morocco, and Malta. By filming in Malta (which was also a filming location for the first movie), the production earned a €46.7 million rebate, which is over $50 million in USD. So that brings some relief, despite the budget being out of control.

CINEMACON TRAILER

A five-minute trailer, which was preceded by a video introduction in which Scott said Gladiator II is “more spectacular than the original,” was screened at the CinemaCon event in early April. JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray was in attendance and reported that the trailer was incredible. He wrote in, “Paul Mescal looks a lot like Russell Crowe, with the same beard. Lucius is a gladiator trained by Denzel Washington’s character. Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is a Roman general trying to lead a revolt against the sadistic emperor (Joseph Quinn). At some point, Quinn and Mescal meet in the gladiator ring for a battle. The games are more sadistic this time, with the gladiators fighting wild baboons unarmed and a rhino. You also see lots of Connie Nielsen, who seems to be in cahoots with Denzel and opposes the emperor. Gladiator II has a ton of action and intrigue. Mescal and Pascal look like they handle the action side, with no shots of Denzel fighting.”

Not mentioned in that write-up was the fact that the trailer features “a scene where they flood the Colosseum and have the gladiators fight sharks.” Which might sound over-the-top and ridiculous to some, but in the early days of the Colosseum, the place would occasionally be flooded so it could be used to host staged ship battles called naumachia… and yes, apparently they would release sharks and other sea creatures into the flooded structure as well. So there is a reflection of reality in this insanity.

Footage from Gladiator II was also shown at the 2024 CineEurope trade show, where Paramount President of International Theatrical Distribution Mark Viane said the sequel has some of the “biggest action sequences ever put on film.” Scott has also said that the movie features “probably the biggest action sequence I’ve ever done.”

TRAILER(S)

A trailer for the film made its way online in July of 2024 and can be seen right here:

Denzel Washington spilled the beans that we could expect to see another trailer by the end of September. He told Variety, “A new trailer comes out on the 23rd. It’s epic.” Sure enough, another trailer arrived online on the 23rd:

Gladiator II has been rated R for strong bloody violence… and that’s everything we know about the movie right now. With the release date just a couple of months away, we will be learning more very soon. In the meantime, Ridley Scott says he’s already looking forward to making Gladiator III.

Here’s a look at two different sets of character posters:

The post Gladiator II: Everything We Know About the Ridley Scott Sequel (Updated with character posters) appeared first on JoBlo.

In a conversation with Den of Geek, Connie Nielsen said it’s “crazy” that Wonder Woman 3 isn’t happening. As we know, a third installment of the franchise was in the works, but when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios, the project was shelved.

“I think it’s crazy. I mean, frankly, I don’t understand it,” said Nielsen, who played Queen Hippolyta in the Wonder Woman franchise. “[Wonder Woman] made $800 million just in the movie theaters, and it has an enormous and passionate, passionate fan base. These are spectacular films, and there’s just no reason I can understand whatsoever for not investing in that. If I were a business person, I would say that’s money on the table. It’s right there. Plus every time we’ve done it, [it was] with budgets that were way smaller than any of the other DC budgets.“

Although the first Wonder Woman movie was a big success, both critically and commercially, the sequel didn’t reach the same heights. Wonder Woman 1984 received mixed reviews and only grossed $170 million worldwide, although, to be fair, it was released during the height of COVID-19.

Still, Nielsen hopes that Wonder Woman 3 will be resurrected. “It’s a pity,” Nielsen said. “I really hope that they change their minds, and that they realize this is crazy. This is a billion dollars that is lying on the table. Not claiming those fans and making them happy is something I just don’t really understand at all.” At the moment, the only Wonder Woman-related project in development for the new DC Universe is the Paradise Lost prequel series for Max.

Nielsen will next be seen reprising her role of Lucilla in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel. “From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.” The film is set to hit theaters on November 22nd.

The post Connie Nielsen thinks it’s “crazy” that Wonder Woman 3 was shelved: “I really hope they change their minds” appeared first on JoBlo.

The upcoming Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, the character we first met as a child played by Spencer Treat Clark in the original movie. Although Clark is the right age to reprise the role (he’s actually nearly a decade older than Mescal), he wasn’t asked back for the sequel, but it doesn’t sound like he’s too upset about it.

“The movie looks so good, and Paul’s going to do such a great job,” Clark told People. “I’ve actually heard great things about the movie.” The actor also noted that he made the first Gladiator movie 25 years ago, so he understands why audiences might not recall that he played the original Lucius. “I feel like it was 25 years ago, but for some people, seeing me as an adult and being like, ‘Oh my God, you’re right. You were Lucius in Gladiator,’ is so wild,” he said. “But I’m really excited to see the movie and to see what Paul brings to it. And yeah, it comes out soon. So I’m excited for it.“

Paul Mescal was nervous about taking on such a big project, but he quickly learned that he needed to keep his nerves under control. “I think the very first day, and just coming out and there being a couple of hundred to a thousand SAs [supporting artists/extras], with fires burning, and the walls of Morocco, I was like, ‘Ooh – this is f***ing big,’” Mescal recently told Total Film. “But… the first thing [Ridley] said before filming was, ‘Your nerves are no f***ing good to me.’ Which is Ridley in a nutshell, but it’s the perfect thing to say, because it’s so liberating. He’s totally right.” Should the film do well, Mescal could return for Gladiator III, which Scott is already working on.

“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.” The film is set to hit theaters on November 22nd.

Spencer Treat Clark can currently be seen in ‘Salem’s Lot, which is now streaming on Max. You can check out a review from our own Tyler Nicols right here.

Would you have liked to have seen Spencer Treat Clark reprise the role of Lucius for Gladiator II?

The post Gladiator II: How does Spencer Treat Clark feel about being replaced by Paul Mescal in the sequel? appeared first on JoBlo.

It’s time to step into the Colosseum with the new featurette of Gladiator II. Paramount Pictures has released this brand-new look with director Ridley Scott and his stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington. The featurette shows just how grand a production this was and Scott was already coming off of another historical epic, Napoleon. As Washington puts it, “This is the biggest film I’ve been on. It’s huge! Cecil B. DeMille on steroids!”

Here is the plot of Gladiator II, as per Paramount: “From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome. Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”

The cast includes Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, with Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington. The screenplay was penned by David Scarpa.

While Ridley Scott and the studio are hyping this film up as the biggest movie either have ever been involved with, many skeptics who are fans of the original still view it as unnecessary as the story had a fitting end with Maximus’ story coming to a close. However, Scott is already intent on turning his saga into a trilogy. As he put it, “I’m already playing with the idea of Gladiator 3. No, seriously. The end of Gladiator II evokes that of the Godfather, with Michael Corleone who ends up with a job he didn’t want, and who wonders, ‘And now, Father, what am I doing? ‘The next film will therefore speak of a man who does not want to be where he is.”

Gladiator II is rated R for “strong bloody violence” and is set to hit theaters on November 22, the same day as Wicked.

The post Go behind the scenes of Gladiator II with the new featurette appeared first on JoBlo.

In just two months, Gladiator II will be hitting theaters. However, Ridley Scott first began considering a Gladiator sequel two decades ago… and it would have been absolutely bizarre, bringing Maximus (Russell Crowe) back from the dead in a supernatural tale full of Roman gods and mythology.

After first considering a prequel about Maximus’s early days in the military and a sequel which focused on corruption and politics in Rome, Scott shifted gears when he tapped Nick Cave to pen the script. The result was unlike anything you would have expected.

The script for the proposed Gladiator sequel would have opened with Maximus awakening in the afterlife, but not the one he imagined in the first movie. Instead, it’s a rain-soaked purgatory filled with miserable souls. He meets a guide named Mordecai, who takes him to meet Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Pluto, Neptune, Mercury, and Bacchus. The deities aren’t looking so great as they’ve been betrayed by Hephaestus. They task Maximus with killing him, promising that they’ll reunite him with his wife and son if he does so. However, when Maximus does find Hephaestus, he suddenly finds himself back in the land of the living more than a decade after his own death. He rises out of the body of a dying Christian in the midst of a massacre led by Lucius, who has grown up to be just as evil as his uncle Commodus.

This persecution was inspired by a real-life event known as the Decian persecution, in which Emperor Decius issued an edict that required everyone in the Empire to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods and the well-being of the Emperor. Those who refused were either killed or forced into hiding. In Nick Cave’s script, this serves as a plot to expose Christians and supply victims to the Colosseum. Speaking of the Colosseum, it naturally makes a return, but it’s been flooded for a mock naval battle between gladiators and Christian prisoners. As we’ve seen in the trailers for Gladiator II, Scott was able to repurpose this scene.

Maximus later meets up with his son, Marius, who is now alive, as well as Juba, the former gladiator played by Djimon Hounsou in the first movie. Together, they train an army of Christian soldiers for an epic and bloody showdown with Lucius’ forces. The ending is perhaps crazier than anything else in the entire movie. We see a montage of Maximus fighting in battles throughout the centuries, including the Crusades, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. It ends with Maximus working at the modern-day Pentagon, cursed to participate in an unending cycle of conflict and bloodshed. According to Nick Cave, Russell Crowe’s reaction was brief, simply saying, “Don’t like it, mate.” Cave later said he enjoyed writing the script so much because he knew it was too crazy to get made. Sure enough, the script was rejected.

Could this Gladiator sequel have worked? Perhaps, but it would take another decade before Scott began entertaining the idea of returning to the world.

“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.” The film is set to hit theaters on November 22nd.

The post The original sequel to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was absolutely bizarre appeared first on JoBlo.

Are you not entertained? Well, if you aren’t yet, Paramount is going to make sure you are by the time Gladiator II hits theaters in November, with them releasing a brand new trailer and poster which gives audiences a better look at some of the carnage Ridley Scott has planned for his epic sequel.

Despite the posters, trailers, footage, and press, it’s still sort of hard to think that we are actually getting Gladiator II. But you better believe it because there has been a lot of investment into the film. And we’re not just talking finances (the movie is said to cost somewhere around $300 million) but by the word of Ridley Scott himself, who said that Gladiator II is one of the best films he’s ever made. Scott is typically one of the biggest hype men for his upcoming films but we do believe he’s confident here. Now, how will it actually stack up against 2000’s Best Picture-winning original?

Here is the plot of Gladiator II, as per Paramount: “From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome. Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”

Ridley Scott’s most recent film, Napoleon, was a box office failure, but is one that he continued to stand by. Could Gladiator II – poised to be another epic from Scott – suffer the same fate? However the numbers come up, Scott is already intent on turning his saga into a trilogy. As he put it, “I’m already playing with the idea of Gladiator 3. No, seriously. The end of Gladiator II evokes that of the Godfather, with Michael Corleone who ends up with a job he didn’t want, and who wonders, ‘And now, Father, what am I doing? ‘The next film will therefore speak of a man who does not want to be where he is.” You have to respect Ridley Scott’s ambitions!

Gladiator II arrives in his homeland on November 15th, with a North American release the following weekend.

Are you excited for Gladiator II? What did you think of the new trailer? Entertain us with your thoughts in the comments section below, and here’s the new poster:

The post Gladiator II: The new trailer drops into the arena and promises epic action from Ridley Scott appeared first on JoBlo.

Are you prepared for a third helping of blood and sand? It may have taken Ridley Scott twenty years to get the ball rolling on Gladiator II, but a third movie might arrive before we know it. While speaking with THR, Scott was asked about a different potential new project, but he pivoted back to Gladiator. “I’d rather get on into Gladiator III,” Scott said. “There’s already an idea.” Scott echoed similar comments to Premiere, but I’m going to put a SPOILER WARNING here before we get into them, as they may give a pretty big hint as to the ending of Gladiator II.

Scott mentioned that he would be taking inspiration from The Godfather for the next sequel. “I’m already playing with the idea of Gladiator 3,” Scott said. “No, seriously. The end of Gladiator II evokes that of the Godfather, with Michael Corleone who ends up with a job he didn’t want, and who wonders, ‘And now, Father, what am I doing? ‘The next film will therefore speak of a man who does not want to be where he is.”

Whether a third Gladiator movie actually happens will depend on how Gladiator II performs, but Ridley Scott feels as though he’s made a damn good movie. The director said last month that Gladiator II is “the best thing I’ve ever made,” before correcting himself. “One of the best things,” he said. “I’ve made a few good ‘uns.“

“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.” The film is set to hit theaters on November 22nd.

We haven’t seen Gladiator II yet, but would you be down for Gladiator III?

The post Ridley Scott already has an idea for Gladiator III appeared first on JoBlo.