Currently in production, Gladiator 2 will hit theaters more than 20 years after the premiere of the original film.
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According to the film’s director Ridley Scott, the difficulty of finding the right story made it impossible for the film to be produced sooner.
“Why now? We didn’t have a script before,” Scott explained to Total Film. “We tried, actually, four years ago, and I picked a really good screenwriter who couldn’t find a story”.
“He struggled. He was terribly upset about not delivering. He’s a friend of mine. I said, ‘Aren’t you going to get there?’ ‘ He said no. It took 10 months, and then he died.”
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According to Ridley, the story for the sequel ended up arising from a somewhat obvious idea: there was a survivor from the original film.
The survivor is the son of the union between Lucilla and Máximus”, added the director, citing the boy Lucius, the character played by Spencer Treat Clark in Gladiator.
The cast of Gladiator 2 includes Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal, among other stars. The return of Connie Nielsen, who played Lucilla in the original film, is also confirmed.
Scheduled for release on November 22, 2024, the sequel has a script by Peter Craig (Top Gun: Maverick) and features Ridley Scott as director.
Thus, the film’s recordings were stopped due to the actors’ strike and as soon as the strike ends, recordings should resume.
The film plot should take place 25 years after the events of the first film, focusing on Lucius (Mescal), son of Lucilla (Nielsen) and nephew of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix).