Russell Crowe was not entertained by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel, deeming the 2024 epic a failure.
Crowe, 62, led the filmmaker’s original Gladiator in 2000, alongside Connie Nielsen and Joaquin Phoenix. His portrayal of the stoic and loyal Maximus, Rome’s powerful general leader during the 2nd century AD, earned him an Oscar for Best Actor.
The actor was left unimpressed by the sequel, starring Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, as it messed with the legacy of the original and “destroyed” its moral core.
Speaking at the Taormina Film Festival, as reported by Deadline, Crowe said, back when he was filming the first Gladiator, he “kept pushing back” on the suggestion his character should have sex scenes.
“I said, ‘This is a story about a man who’s avenging the death of his wife and his child. There cannot be a moment on that journey where he stops and has sex with somebody. It doesn’t make any sense… that destroys the journey.’”
He said the studio “fought me” and “sent me letters about it and everything, but Crowe stuck to his guns and “luckily, Ridley, even though he would have loved to write a sex scene with me and Connie Nielsen, he agreed with me back then, and that that was the moral core of the film”.
Jump forward 24 years, and the sequel – written by David Scarpa – “destroyed that moral centre”, according to Crowe.
In the film, Mescal plays Maximus’s illegitimate son, a plot point that contradicts Crowe’s interpretation of his character, as it suggests he had a romantic relationship while seeking vengeance for his wife.
“It’s very interesting because the second movie barely took the same box office that the first movie took, but that’s 20 years later, and when you apply how much of a change there’s been on the value of a dollar, they failed, and they failed because they didn’t understand why it was successful, because it had a moral core.”
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Crowe said that the original film was such a success because it was “an old-fashioned” story about vengeance, which attracted women as well as men.
“On the surface, Gladiator is a movie for men, but if it was a movie for men, it would be about revenge,” he said.
“But it’s not about revenge. It’s a movie for women because it’s about vengeance and this is a subtle difference, but it is a difference.I needed the character to stay on that track,” he said.
The first Gladiator – written by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson – made $466m (£346.7m) at the box office, while the sequel made $462.2m (£343.9m)
