News culture Ridley Scott succeeds in his bet with Gladiator 2: the film has the best start of 2024 in France… and is almost twice as good as the first part!
Published on 11/17/2024 at 3:55 p.m.
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This Wednesday the second opus of Gladiator was released, the iconic film directed by Ridley Scott, about the glorious fighters of the Colosseum. The feature film had a real tidal wave against the other releases of the week, establishing itself as one of the best film starts of this year.
Thumbs down…for the others!
Gladiator 2 has barely been released (November 13) when it has already taken first place in the box office records, excluding animated films. Indeed, the second chapter of Ridley Scott’s work accounts for nearly 400 000 entrées for the moment, what is twice as much as for his first opus, released in 2000. Gladiator 2 had the best start, after Vice Versa 2 all the same (527,000 entries). To get an idea, the blockbuster Top Gun Maverick had 320,000 admissions on the day of its release in France.
Ridley Scott’s film grossed approximately $465 million at the box office, more than 4 times its budget of $103 million. And Gladiator 2 is doing really well in terms of profitability, it’s not the same melody on the critical side. The film seems less popular than its predecessor. While the 2000 opus received scores of 7.6 on Senscritique and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes (press score), that of 2024 has scores of 5.8 and 76% respectively.
Nothing stops him anymore
For this second film, the famous director offers a return to the Colosseum in Romewhere Lucius (Paul Mescla) and Marcus (Pedro Pascal) clash. The first is the heir and son of the deceased Maximus. The second, a general leading a rebellion in the service of the two emperors: Caracella (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn). Lucius is assisted by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who also has a grudge against General Marcus.
Unlike one of the cast members (Denzel Washington), Ridley Scott has no plans to retire anytime soon. The director has, in fact, an idea in his head for a sequel to Gladiator 2. The third part is already being writtenthe filmmaker also indicates that the end of the second film has, according to him, many similarities with The Godfatherby Francis Ford Coppola. This ending is open, that is to say that if the film is a success, everything suggests that the Gladiator saga will then become a trilogy.
