The idea of Gladiator 2 has always been a bit of a tough sell for many. After all, Russell Crowe’s heroic Maximus got a pretty good death in the original film, standing above the corpse of the false Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and reaching toward the afterlife – and his murdered wife and son. Yet it’s not in Maximus or Commodus that director Ridley Scott has looked toward making a sequel over the years – it’s in Commodus’ nephew, Lucius, the future emperor of Rome.
We’ve known for years that Scott has been toying with a Gladiator 2 and now it weirdly seems like it’s actually happening. According to Deadline, Scott has set-up shop for the sequel at Paramount Pictures, and has hired Peter Craig to write the screenplay. Craig’s previous credits include co-writing The Town, 12 Strong, and the last two Hunger Games movies. It seems Scott is very intent on directing the sequel, which is not too surprising since he revisited some of his other old success when he directed the last two Alien prequels.
Gladiator 2 would obviously have quite a long shadow to emerge from. It would be Scott returning to the movie he won a Best Picture Oscar for, and in a genre he has visited more than once (pretty spectacularly with the original, even more so with the director’s cut of Kingdom Of Heaven… and much less so with Robin Hood). Still, the idea of him returning to Rome is not actually a bad idea, especially in an era where we enjoy our own bread and circuses more than ever. It’s not like there aren’t a few more stories to wring out of one of the most defining periods of world history, and it might just be the title that’s putting us off. Romans, what say you?