‘Gladiator II’ Trailer: Ridley Scott Returns To The Roman Empire

Sep 24

From Ryan Cordaro

I’m definitely not the only one thinking this, but Ridley Scott hasn’t exactly had the best track record recently. He’s certainly got his classics like Alien and Blade Runner, but he hasn’t exactly made a great movie recently. The last of Scott’s movies I can remember a lot of people loving is The Martian, but I’ve also really enjoyed Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and The Last Duel. A big one he has in his work, though, is Gladiator, the Best Picture-winning Roman epic. Scott’s been working on the sequel since at least 2001, and now, it’s finally time to go back to Rome.

Gladiator II follows Lucius, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius and child of Maximus and Lucilla, a man who’s forced into slavery after General Marcus Acacius invades his home country of Nubidia. In captivity, he reunites with his mother and becomes a gladiator. He’s also mentored by a former slave who wishes to become Roman emperor. There’s a lot of moving parts in this to the point where it’d be one long, run-on sentence, but the trailer below actually does a good job of boiling down all of the plotlines they seem to be including, at least the main ones in the trailer. Just based on the two trailers that have been released for this, it feels like one of Scott’s most ambitious movies yet. He’s certainly proven his worth with his films, and if this even comes close to what the classics in his work are, this feels like it’ll be worth it.

Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal (Normal People, Aftersun), Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, A Quiet Place: Day One), Fred Hechinger (The Pale Blue Eye, the upcoming Nickel Boys), Connie Nielsen (One Hour Photo, Wonder Woman), Derek Jacobi (Gosford Park, Dead Again), May Calamawy (Moon Knight, Ramy), and Denzel Washington (Training Day, the upcoming High and Low).