Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 is apparently moving forwards with reports stating that casting has begun ahead of a planned summer shoot.
A sequel to 2000’s Gladiator has been mooted for many a year now, not least by the first film’s director, Ridley Scott. Despite being in his mid-80s, Scott is showing no signs of slowing down, nor winding back the scale of the projects to which he commits. As work on his huge historical drama Napoleon continues, the veteran filmmaker has now begun the casting process for his next project. It’s the long-promised return to the world of Gladiator, the blockbuster success that spawned countless imitators and launched the most commercially successfully period of Scott’s career.
Little else is known about the project at this time, apart from the report from Puck News that casting is underway and that there is a planned production date of May 2023. Given Scott’s comments, it sounds like there will be some connection to the original film, with the filmmaker previously stating that “we have a good footprint, a good, logical place to go. You can’t just do another Gladiator type movie. You’ve got to follow…there’s enough components from the first one to pick up the ball and continue it.”
The project won’t be using the infamous Nick Cave pitch which would have followed Russell Crowe’s Maximus character into the afterlife, the Crusades and the Vietnam War but is more likely to pick up with a fully-grown version of the Lucius character, a child who featured prominently in the original film.
Scott has a penchant for talking up projects long before they’re a sure thing and as such, Gladiator 2 always felt like a project that was never going to happen. With casting now underway though, not to mention Scott’s busy schedule appearing to have a gap, this one is looking more and more like it’s going to be a thing. We’ll bring you more details as we hear them.
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