Gladiator 2 has been in the works for a long time. Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have been talking about making a Gladiator sequel for over two decades now. Both have been dropping hints and leaking information at a broken faucet’s pace for a while now. But hope is strong in the fan base as announcements come out that Spencer Treat Clark has officially been cast and Gladiator 2 could begin production in May. It’s been a long time for fans to wait so patiently but as the reality of a sequel grows closer, everyone’s wondering what they’re going to get from the movie.
Gladiator is a surprising work from Ridley Scott to age so well. Though the movie finished with the main character’s death and a fairly neat bow tied around it, fans have kept wanting more. The most likely plot line for a sequel would follow Spencer Treat Clark’s character Lucius, the Empress Lucilla’s son. He was next in line to be emperor and greatly admired Russell Crowe’s character Maximus in the gladiatorial games. Fans have also been very outspoken about wanting to see more of Crowe, even though his character is dead. Theories also sprung up that the sequel might get more supernatural when a third-party script came into play. Ridley Scott has a lot of options, heading into his creative process for Gladiator 2.
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Gladiator 2 Will Focus on Spencer Treat Clark
DreamWorks Pictures
Now that the young Lucius has been recast as an adult, fans expect to see a story focusing on what happened to the young Emperor. Historically, Lucius died very young, but this sequel should follow what happened to him now that his evil uncle Commodus is dead, and he’s learned lessons of honor and justice from Maximus.
In the first movie, the young Lucius reminded Maximus of his own son, who was killed on Commodus’ orders. While he was enslaved at the Coliseum, met Lucius and inspired the boy through his incredible performance in combat and admirable morals in the throne room. If this new story follows Lucius as Emperor, we’ll get to see how Maximus might have served as a kind of surrogate father to the boy and in what way those lessons affected his growth.
That premise of not having Maximus present in the narrative but using him as an influence may give the audience another chance to see Russell Crowe in his starring role. If Gladiator 2 continues to be about Maximus and the lasting effects he’s had on the Roman Empire, then we might get a chance to see him return in a flashback or memory. Or even if he doesn’t appear in the movie, it’s more than likely he’ll still be involved in the movie’s development somehow. He himself remains a big fan of the original film and posts Gladiator-related content on Twitter to this day.
Fans have theorized about Maximus’ death for the decades since Gladiator first premiered. Many have thought that even though he was dead, he may find his way back to Earth in a supernatural way. This isn’t normally the type of movie Scott directs. Though he is one of the defining voices of the science fiction genre, the auteur doesn’t often deal with tropes that fall outside the realm of logic or possibility. Still, fans were teased with the idea when Scott gave his friend Nick Cave a chance to write Gladiator 2’s screenplay.
Nick Cave’s Script
Universal Pictures
The Gladiator 2 script is complete and written by Peter Craig. He’s recently most famous for helping write The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick. But in the early 2000s, Scott gave his friend the opportunity to write the sequel. Though Cave is mostly known for his talent in singing and songwriting, he has written some notable screenplays before, including The Proposal and the 2012 film Lawless. When given the chance, he wrote a sequel that revolved around the deceased Maximus. The Roman general arrived at Mount Olympus to meet a host of Roman gods who, upon his arrival, revived him, and tasked him with pursuing a rogue god who had betrayed the others.
Though this seems a bit outside of Scott’s wheelhouse, fans do still wonder if parts of Cave’s script will be used in Peter Craig’s. One scene in Cave’s screenplay has a Roman amphitheater equipped to recreate a mock sea battle, which is something that old coliseums were known to do. Certain coliseums were constructed with the ability to be flooded, whereupon the facility would float a ship and have gladiators fight alligators or experienced sailors to tell a story.
Though the screenplay has already been written, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Scott to expand the possibilities of gladiatorial combat and have such a sea battle take place. The plot will probably remain more grounded, as Scott is known to do, but having more spectacular battles might be something we can expect to see in Gladiator 2.
