Some 20 years after it became a blockbuster and an Oscar winner, Gladiator is finally getting a sequel. It will not feature the original film’s star, Russell Crowe, whose character died in the original film. But it seems like the new movie will not be lacking in the star department. The sequel’s cast already includes such names as Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Joseph Quinn, and Connie Nielsen, returning from the original Gladiator as Lucilla.
To that list, we can now add Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us fame, who will be joining the film in an as-yet-unrevealed role. The film will focus on Lucius, played by Mescal, who is Lucilla’s son and the nephew of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator), the evil emperor of Rome who murdered his own father in order to claim the throne. He feels threatened by Crowe’s Maximus, and has his family murdered and Maximus sent into bondage, which is how he winds up becoming a gladiator.
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The Lucius character was a relatively small but important part of the first Gladiator. It’s not clear yet what will happen to him in this film. (If I had to bet, I would wager that it has something to do with gladiatoring. Just a hunch of mine.) Although Crowe is not involved, Gladiator’s director, Ridley Scott, is back to helm this sequel as well. The original movie grossed over $500 million worldwide and won the 2000 Academy Award for Best Picture over competition like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic.
Gladiator 2 is set to open in theaters on November 22, 2024.
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