It’s not that Hollywood itself is out of ideas. It’s just that the handful of old farts who are doggedly preventing the industry from suffering any influx of new creative talent are out of ideas. Case in point, there is now apparently a Gladiator 2 in the works, according to reports this morning.
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In what would be a direct sequel to the original Gladiator that was released in 2000, helped cement Russell Crowe‘s status as a Hollywood player, garnered 11 Academy Award nominations and successfully put Oliver Reed into the ground, is being pushed ahead at the behest of director Ridley Scott, who seems hell-bent on getting a follow-up flick off the ground.
Reports from Deadline suggest that Paramount Pictures is fuelling the project and have tapped Peter Craig to write the script, whose past credits include The Town, both halves of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, and the upcoming Top Gun sequel.
Given Russell Crowe’s character ended up extremely dead at the conclusion of the first film, any potential sequel will almost certainly feature a mostly new cast. Early reports suggest the film would instead focus on the character of Lucius, aka the child from the first one.
Lucius, as the original went, was the son of Lucilla (played by Connie Nielson), and the nephew of Commodus (the film’s chief asshole played by Joaquin Phoenix), who was somewhat taken with Russell Crowe’s fallen General Maximus.
Ridley Scott has a few things on his plate before Gladiator 2 can roll cameras, so don’t expect to see anything of it anytime soon.
But still, like most utterly ridiculous ideas from Hollywood that hit the news, it’s happening. You can’t stop it. It will be a thing that exists.
