Is There Going to Be a Gladiator 3? Everything We Know
While the critics aren't quite in agreement about whether the Gladiator sequel was actually worth the 24-year wait, the film-going public was certainly entertained. Entertained enough, in fact, that people have started asking director Ridley Scott for a sequel – particularly if that means more Paul Mescal, too.
The good news is that Scott doesn’t see Gladiator II as the end of the story. He told French magazine Premiere: “People ask me if a third film is possible. And I say: Of course! It's an instinctive answer. Have we already figured out how to do it? Not really…”
Then, he told Total Film that he’s already started work on Gladiator III: “I’ve already got eight pages. I’ve got the beginning of a very good footprint.” Which is very promising, indeed. He also hinted that the action may move from the arena: “If there’s a Gladiator 3, I don’t think you’d ever go back into the arena. But I had to go back into the arena…”
With Gladiator II ending (spoiler alert!) with the power falling to Lucius (Mescal), Scott is now grappling with the idea that Lucius may not even want the new role. Scott’s even looking back to other cinematic epics like The Godfather II as the reference point.
“I always had this idea that The Godfather ends with Michael not wanting the job,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “He sits there, and there’s this push-in on Al. He’s already had his hand kissed. He’s betrayed his wife with lies. [Lucius] isn’t quite that evil at all. He’s wondering, ‘Father, what do I do?’.”
He then expanded on this with Premiere magazine, saying: “The next [film] will be about a man who doesn’t want to be where he is.”
Will Mescal return?
One major factor in if G3 makes it to the screen will be Mescal, who’s built up some serious Oscar buzz around his role in the film. A follow-up could be dependent on whether he would be willing to leather up – and seriously beef up – one more time. However, Mescal told Variety: “Oh yeah, [I’m] massively down. I don’t think it will be [24] years, but I have no idea when it will be.”
Will… Russell Crowe return?
Stay with us… apparently Crowe wanted to return from the dead for a potential Gladiator 2 that he, Scott and the musician Nick Cave were randomly writing in the 2000s. Speaking with People magazine, Scott revealed: “Russell and I had a go at it around 18 years ago. I had Nick Cave writing the script and I kept saying [to Russell], ‘But you’re dead.’ And he said, ‘I know I’m dead. And I want to come back from the dead.'” Scott then says he tried to honour his wishes by creating a “portal to bring him back from the dead…through a dying warrior, he comes back into the spirit of the warrior.”
Bizarrely, according to the BBC, a script was written – and later discarded – which saw Maximus become a time traveller, battling through The Crusades, The World Wars and Vietnam, before ending up in the Pentagon. Crowe’s reaction? “Don’t like it, mate.” Still, don’t write off Crowe wrangling his way back into Gladiator 3.
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