Ridley Scott says he’s going to make Gladiator 2 after his Napoleon movie
The movie will take place 25 years after the original, but it won't be the amazing sequel that Nick Cave dreamed up
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A few years ago, Ridley Scott confirmed that he was developing a sequel to his Oscar-winning epic Gladiator that would focus on Lucius, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s villainous Commodus from the original movie. Peter Craig (of The Town) had been tapped to write the script, but that was all we knew at the time… and it’s also all we still know at this time, but Scott just revealed in an interview with Empire (via The Hollywood Reporter) that the script is being written now.
Scott says the plan is for Gladiator 2 to be “ready to go” when he finishes Kitbag, the Napoleon movie he’s making with Jodie Comer and Joaquin Phoenix (yes, he’s slightly taller than Napoleon was, we’ll save you the trouble of looking it up), which presumably means that it will be his next movie. Seeing as how the new hobby that Scott picked up over the course of the pandemic is “making movies really fast” (he has two coming out this year!), we might not even have to wait too long to see how ancient Rome has changed in the last few decades.
No matter what, though, Scott’s Gladiator 2 definitely be as completely off-the-wall bananas as the version that original star Russell Crowe hired Nick Cave to write. Crowe, whose character very much dies in the original movie, asked Cave to come up with a script that Crowe could still star in, which resulted in a fantasy epic where Crowe’s Maximus wakes up in the afterlife and is forced to become an assassin for the gods in order to earn a second chance at life.
As this BBC story lays it out, Maximus succeeds and is sent back to Earth to deal with even more drama between tyrannical Roman rulers and the people they kill for fun, leading to a battle between Rome and early Christian rebels. As punishment/reward for his lifetime(s) of violence, though, Maximus would then be cursed to live for eternity, leading soldiers to die in the Crusades, the World Wars, and every other major battle in history.
That would’ve been awesome, but it also probably would’ve been profoundly silly. Russell Crowe has more things to worry about now anyway, like the fact that young people don’t appreciate grown-up movies like Master And Commander or that 20th Century Fox decided to immediately undercut that argument by developing a version of Master And Commander that is specifically for young people.
54 Comments
Gladiator 2: Coliseum Boogaloo
Oh man, for a second it was going to be the bug fuck crazy Nick Cave one…kinda bummed it’s not. :/
It would be better than the one that’s going to be made.If we must get a sequel no one wanted to a Ridley Scott movie, can we get Thelma and Louise II?
I was thinking exactly about a Thelma and Louis II last night. It’s been 30 years and way past time.
How have we been through the last five years and rebooted neither Thelma and Louise or The Legend of Billie Jean.
Feminism went over a cliff in a 1966 Ford Thunderbird. 30 years later it feels like T&L’s sacrifice doesn’t seem to have gotten us anywhere.
The film begins with the car landing in a dump that’s filled the canyon, just like the Simpsons
Gladiator 2: Coliseum Boogaloo
I feel like the God of War team needs to get in touch with Nick Cave.
I feel like Nick Cave might want to get in touch with his lawyers.
Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood get more shit done in their 80s/90s than I ever did in my prime. Impressive, honestly.
which resulted in a fantasy epic where Crowe’s Maximus wakes up in the afterlife and is forced to become an assassin for the gods in order to earn a second chance at life.I’d always heard Cave’s script involved the afterlife somehow, but never read this plot detail. I…kinda want to see that story.
On the one hand: This seems to confirm he’s not going to be able to continue spilling gallons of wine all over the Alien series.On the other hand: This seems to confirm there’s going to be a Gladiator 2.SimpsonsFrogurt.gif
I hope the sequel focuses on Djimon Hounsou’s character.
Djimon!
Djigital Monsters!
Djimon are the champions!
Change into Djigital champions, to save the Djigital world!
Finally, somebody else on the internet who hears that…
Welp, I’m now calling him “Digimon Hounsou” for the rest of my life.
I would have the story be based around Saint Telemachus and the abolishment of Gladiators.
C’mon Ridley. You’ve earned enough credit to go out with a bang. Shoot the Nick Cave version. We need a new bug-fuck crazy, big-budget midnight movie.
Was this Cave’s script before or after Russell fell in love with Baskin Robbins?
I, for one, am not entertained.
another opportunity to point out what a fantastic fucking film Master and Commander is.
I want a dramatic sequel that focuses solely on Maximus’ struggle to lose enough weight to fit back into his gladiator outfit. During this journey he learns that the crowd’s adulation had always just been a substitute for the love he could never feel for himself. Maximus ultimately finds himself, accepts his midlife weight gain and exchanges the gladiator arena for the competitive eating circuit.In the final shot of the movie, which takes place at the Roman Eating Championships in the Coliseum, Maximus looks up from his plate and for the first time ever, we see him smile. He is free. With a mouthful of apple pie, he looks up to the crowd, crumbs dropping from his face, and asks with a twinkle in his eye, “Are ooo not ennernaind?!”
Death is typically followed by significant weightless.
Or how about when Maximus has to sell everything he owns because of his divorce settlement?
I choose to believe that Sir Scott in that photo is standing in front of an enormous sign just that says “LAURA DERN”
I’m genuinely interested in the Napoleon movie. I wonder if he is going to use any of Kubrik’s plans. Kubrick had planned a Napoleon movie for years but didn’t get around to it.
Can we approve legislation allowing a director’s previous films to file a restraining order against him?
I was just saying we need a Napoleon movie. Seems like a thing that should’ve happened by now
Abel Gance made one. And he’s in Time Bandits! More seriously, here’s Wikipedia’s category page:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Biographical_films_about_Napoleon
Fair enough, but more recently and not on TV. Like on a Ridley Scott level. I do want to see some of the older ones though like Napoleon at St. Helena
Waterloo (1970) is a pretty bonkers example of you want see a combination Dino De Laurentis/Soviet production with 15,000 costumed extras doing the battle scenes.
ooh hell yeah
After a certain point, it was no longer Napoleon, but Sidney Applebaum.
The weird thing about Napoléon’s life is that it would never work as fiction. The audience wouldn’t buy it. It’s just absurdly unrealistic — all of it — yet it happened.
Sadly Stanley Kubrick never was able to make his. The amount of research he did for it was INSANE. The traveling Kubrick exhibit had a section on it you can see in the Tested video below. It would have been incredible. I REALLY want to see this if it ever comes near me.
(yes, he’s slightly taller than Napoleon was, we’ll save you the trouble of looking it up)I looked it up. I’d say a two inch difference doesn’t matter all that much. That’s what she didn’t say!
Yeah, Napoleon wasn’t THAT short for his time. I’m glad nobody suggested Tom Cruise. Or Peter Dinklage.
Tom and Phoenix are roughly the same height
They built sets so Herbert Lom could walk lower than the rest of the War and Peace cast so he’d appear as the historically inaccurate diminutive Napoleon. Or they could have gotten Dorf Conway to do it. Dorf on Josephine!
“He’s slightly taller than Napoleon was, we’ll save you the trouble of looking it up.”Thanks, I did anyway. It’s more complicated than I thought. Scholars put Napoleon’s height at 5’2”-5’7”. (Turns out there was more than one system 0f measurement in use at the time, and people had reason to exaggerate one way or the other.) The lower limit would have been normal for a Frenchman of the time but short for a military officer and probably tiny next to an imperial bodyguard. The upper limit would be exceptionally tall for a commoner but not so much for an aristocrat.Joaquin Phoenix’s height is commonly given as 5’8”. Knowing actors, I would not be surprised if it was an inch or two less, which would make him shorter than average (but not remarkably so) for an adult American/European male. In conclusion, he may be simultaneously too tall and too short to play Napoleon.Side note: Kitbag? I realize “Napoleon and Josephine” was already taken, but I’m surprised he went with a word I only know through Ted Lasso.What, a Gladiator sequel? Okay, whatever.
Joaquin Phoenix I think is a good call both looks-wise and personality wise. I think Russell Crowe could’ve pulled it off too.
Well, if there’s one thing that’s never worked out at all poorly, it’s Ridley Scott returning years later to a beloved work of his and making a belated sequel, so I’m sure this is going to be great!
Technically, you’re correct. Prometheus was a prequel.
Technically correct is the best kind of correct!
Gladia2r?
Idris Elba would be great as Napoleon.
Too tall.
Better star Spencer Treat Clark or don’t even bother.Yes, I’m serious.
Gotta give it up to Ridley, man. 83 and pumping out more movies then ever before. I think in 2017 or so he had 5 movies that year or something crazy.
I’m over here waiting for a Napoleon Dynamite 2.
That script is so goddamn insane my head is spinning. I kinda wish it got made.
I so so badly want to read the treatment/draft/whatever it was that Nick Cave maybe wrote for the new “The Crow” movie more closely based on the original comic that never ended up happening.