It’s been greater than twenty years for the reason that Ridley Scott blockbuster Gladiator turned a cultural phenomenon. Now, a long-discussed sequel to the Roman epic, is lastly coming to fruition. Based on Selection, Gladiator 2 is about for November 22, 2024, and an appropriately insane forged is already taking form. Paul Mescal was the primary identify connected, because the lead position, and now it’s being reported that acclaimed character actor Barry Keoghan in addition to Denzel Washington are in talks to affix as effectively.
Each Mescal and Keoghan had been nominees on the 2023 Academy Awards, Mescal for Finest Actor for Aftersun, and Keoghan as a Supporting Actor in The Banshees of Inisherin. Mescal is slated to star in Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Alongside and Andrew Haigh’s Strangers, and Keoghan is rumored to be reprising his temporary cameo as The Joker within the upcoming sequel to 2022’s The Batman, this time in a meatier capability, and likewise has a task in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.
Washington, Deadline stories, is now additionally in talks to seem within the subsequent Gladiator. He final labored with Scott in 2007, starring within the Frank Lucas crime biopic American Gangster.
Gangster additionally starred the OG Gladiator himself, Russell Crowe, as Maximus Decimus Meridius, who rises by way of the ranks of the Roman gladiator enviornment to avenge his household’s homicide by the hands of the duplicitous Emperor Marcus Aurelius, performed by Joaquin Phoenix.
Gladiator was one of many greatest movies of the 2000s, successful 5 Academy Awards together with Finest Image and Finest Actor, and grossing greater than $460 million. Rumors a couple of sequel adopted nearly instantly.
The brand new film has been within the works since a minimum of 2018, when Deadline reported that Scott could be directing a sequel that focuses on Lucius, son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s villain Commodus. The script was initially going to be written by Peter Craig (The Batman, The City), however now will reportedly be dealt with by David Scarpa (The Day the Earth Stood Nonetheless, All of the Cash within the World). A number of necessary behind-the-scenes figures from Gladiator will reportedly return, together with cinematographer John Mathieson, manufacturing designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates, all of whom obtained Oscar nominations for his or her work (Yates received Finest Costume Design).
Mescal will play Lucius, whereas Keoghan is in talks to star reverse him because the villainous Emperor Geta. Scott, 85, is in a prolific late-career interval, having directed 4 characteristic movies since 2017, with an upcoming historic epic about Napoleon Bonaparte slated for launch in 2023.
