There was something fitting about the setting.
Paramount Pictures unveiled the first footage from “Gladiator II” on the stage of The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, a hotel that reimagines Ancient Rome in all its decadent splendor, albeit with a few more slot machines. Ridley Scott seems to be offering a bloodier version of that distant age, one that finds Paul Mescal enter the arena as a nobleman who has renounced his privilege.
Based on the trailer that Scott brought to Las Vegas to share with cinema owners, “Gladiator 2” recaptures the first film’s epic sprawl and shattering action sequences. One that saw Mescal face off against a charging rhino and a horde of vicious baboons. There were also naval bombardments, political intrigue aplenty and a pair of diabolical emperors who seem even crazier than Joaquin Phoenix’s spiteful monarch. Through it all, Denzel Washington seems to be pulling the strings as a shadowy operator who intends to use Mescal as a blunt instrument in his power play. “Rome must fall,” he says at one point. “I need only to give it a push.”
“It is possibly even more extraordinary than the first,” Scott said in a video message. [It] is well worth the wait.” Of course, it’s no small act to bring back “Gladiator.” The 2000 film won best picture at the Oscars and was a box office smash. It was hard to cook up a sequel however given that original star Russell Crowe’s character doesn’t make it past the final credits, nor does Phoenix’s character. But Connie Nielsen returns as Lucilla, the mother of Mescal’s Lucius, as does Derek Jacobi, playing a member of the Roman Senate. They are joined by an ensemble of heavyweights that includes Washington, who previously worked with Scott on “American Gangster,” and “The Mandalorian’s” Pedro Pascal. Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”) and Joseph Quinn (“Stranger Things”) play co-emperor Geta and co-emperor Caracalla, respectively.
“Gladiator II” will open in the U.S. on Nov. 22, 2024. Filming on the film was suspended in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, before resuming in December.