Will Gladiator II be a useful cautionary tale about putting self-serving man-babies in charge?

Almost 25 years after its release, Gladiator still casts a beefy shadow. Ridley Scott’s sweeping Roman chop-em-up was nominated for 12 Oscars and won five, including Best Picture and Best Actor. It elevated Russell Crowe to the Hollywood A-list and reframed the strapping New Zealand-born actor as an object of desire for both women and men. It also made enough of a commercial impact that it single handedly resuscitated the sword-and-sandal epic, a genre that had been gathering dust for decades.

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In 2000, a time when the world was obsessed with looking ahead to a new millennium, making an unashamedly old-fashioned movie seemed out of step with the dotcom zeitgeist. Before it came out, Gladiator looked most likely to be remembered as Oliver Reed’s last film when the veteran hellraiser died of a heart attack after a heavy session in a Maltese bar.

But something about it clearly resonated with audiences in a way that opportunistic follow-ups like mob-handed Greek siege Troy (2004), Macedonian steamroller biopic Alexander (2004) or blood-soaked Spartan slasher 300 (2006) failed to replicate. Gladiator’s classic story of righteous vengeance and irascible tigers managed to be both timeless and timely.

Fast forward to this year – and Gladiator II is looming on the horizon. The prolific, seemingly tireless Scott is back in the chariot-driving seat, drawing from his own tried-and-tested Colosseum playbook. Again, a monumental production is built around a relative unknown: scruffy Irish hunk Paul Mescal, an indie darling but blockbuster virgin.

The Reed role of wily veteran who knows all the angles is filled by Denzel Washington. Toga veterans Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi both return. As the original’s preening, power-hungry antagonist Commodus, Joaquin Phoenix was a pathetic but still scary villain; for the sequel, Scott has doubled up with two cruel nepo babies (played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger) who view their empire as a plaything.

The advance buzz for Gladiator II is good-to-great: perhaps surprising for a belated sequel to such a beloved film, especially one required to negotiate a Crowe-shaped hole at its centre. (Another appealing aspect to the original, particularly in our current age of daisy-chaining cinematic universes, is that Maximus has a definitive, cathartic ending.) 

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In respectfully taking up the heroic mantle, new lead Mescal has clearly put in the gym time; as a kid, his character Lucius canonically saw Maximus fight in the Colosseum so he views him as an inspiration. Lucius also looks to have a similar character arc of going from outcast to slave, to novice gladiator, to lethal sporting superstar finally popular enough to take a swipe at the rotten regime.

Perhaps the stars have somehow again aligned again for Gladiator II to conquer the mainstream and ride to awards victory. But why make the sequel now? After 15 years of superhero neo-mythology perhaps there is an appetite for something that feels a little more grounded and authentic – even if that is just returning to a movie from 24 years ago that was channelling widescreen classics from the 1960s that were themselves manufacturing the sort of thrilling, violent historic spectacle intended to keep the masses safely distracted.

The fun theory is that last autumn Scott spotted the trend for TikTok videos where women asked their boyfriends how often they thought about the Roman empire (spoiler: constantly) and decided that finally the time was right. Or that he witnessed the success of the BBC’s reboot of spandex-clad 1990s gameshow Gladiators and realised that a gap of a few decades was the sweet spot where fans who loved the original when they were young could now watch the follow-up with their own kids. (Although it’s probably not ideal to take a seven-year-old along to see a stuntman with a trident get trampled by an angry rhino.)

The less fun theory is that since the original Gladiator triumphed at the Oscars we have seen the resurgence of populism around the globe. Measured political debate has been repeatedly drowned out by theatrical rabble-rousing, and the bread-and-circuses of social media distracts the populace in the gaudy tradition of the Colosseum while would-be emperors attempt to install themselves as all-powerful rulers.

Against that geopolitical backdrop, will Gladiator II be a useful cautionary tale about putting self-serving man-babies in charge… or simply another distraction?

Gladiator II is in cinemas from 15 November.

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