The producer of Gladiator 2Douglas Wick, looks back on the end of the film, and the choice to have brought Paul Mescal's character to this place.
Tidal waves Vaiana 2 et Wicked have arrived at the cinema and are just getting started, but Gladiator 2 defends his position. The sequel directed by Ridley Scott has so far cashed in more than 320 million at the worldwide box officeincluding 111 million on the domestic side – the North American territory, particularly important since this is where a Hollywood studio recovers the most.
Gladiator II so go exceed the first Gladiator (465 million in 2000), with two important details all the same: with inflation, the score of the film led by Russell Crowe remains unsurpassable; and this second opus has such an enormous budget that the assessment will be complicated. It would have cost in the 200-250 million dollars, but the rumor speaks of a budget which would have exploded beyond 300 million. All this without the marketing.
Waiting a possible little Oscar effectin the event that Gladiator 2 is named on principle since the original won five awards including best film and best actor, the team provides after-sales promotional service. And one of the producers notably returned to the end of the filmand the choice to bring the character Paul Mescal to this location.
ATTENTION SPOILERS
THE “LOST PRINCE” OF GLADIATOR 2
In a long interview with The Hollywood Reporter in November 2024, Douglas Wick and his colleague Lucy Fisher returned to the stages of the creation of Gladiator II. And the producer explained how the question of the ending was decisive, since it is which allowed the film to actually be launched.
As a reminder, at the end of Gladiator 2the kind Lucius pursues the naughty Macrinus and stops him at the gates of Rome, while the two armies are preparing to confront each other. The hero played by Paul Mescal overcomes his adversary, then announces to everyone that he is the heirand that there will be no war. It's necessary rebuild Rome, and come together to make it happen.
Douglas Wick explains how they envisioned several options to conclude Lucius' story, wondering if it should end in an apocalypse landscape:
“Beyond the idea of Lucius as a lost prince, he was someone who hated everything about Rome, so the film was a homecoming. We know enough about films to know that the more it's about family, the stronger it is. Then we talked for a long time about what the end of Lucius' journey would be. He was going to come back, he was potentially going to be reunited with his mother, but was he going to burn down the Coliseum and leave?«
THE VERY LATEST IMAGE FROM GLADIATOR 2
This is where director Ridley Scott comes in, who thought in the other direction: what scenes, what images could conclude Gladiator 2 ? And from there, how do you get the character to the right place?
“A lot of our advances have been visual, because Ridley thinks visually. While we were talking about these themes, he would always get a little bored, and then he would come up with a visual solution. His visual solution for the ending involved Lucius being drawn like a magnet to his destiny as a Roman, and his destiny with his family. All his attempts to cut himself off from his past, to cauterize the wound and separate himself from it, failed. Although Lucius hated Rome and did not want to be part of Rome, events took him to a place where he is indeed a Roman. »
Once Ridley Scott had found the final image for the film, Gladiator 2 could be launched:
“So Ridley's idea for the very last image is that he realizes everything that happened. Suddenly, we had a start and a film, and that's when we knew we had the film. »
In the rest of the interview, Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher cover a lot of interesting stuff: Ridley Scott “rarely shoots with less than eight cameras, sometimes there were twelve or more” ; the filming ended earlier than expected thanks to the efficiency of the filmmaker; the idea of the rhino had been abandoned on the first Gladiatormiss the budget.
The duo also believes that the production of Gladiator 2 was so huge (sometimes more than 2000 extras and a crew of 450 people) that it will be perhaps the last of its kind.
As for the Gladiator 3 that Ridley Scott has already teased, the producers remain cautious:
“There are too many bad sequels that are there to make money. So we will maintain our standards, but we hope. »
Who said “too late”?
