Behind the Scenes of ‘Gladiator II’: Secrets, Scandals and One Denzel Washington Moment That Was Cut

Gladiator II may have hit screens in 2024 — but it was a film 25 years in the making!

The sequel to the 2000 Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix original took two and a half decades to become reality as director Ridley Scott noted, “I kept getting told by people that ‘Gladiator’ was their favorite movie. One guy said, ‘I’ve watched it 50 times.’ So that rang a bell.”

Gladiator II takes place around 209 A.D., or about 16 years after the demise of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) and Maximus (Crowe). The storyline surrounds Maximus’ son Hanno (Paul Mescal), an enslaved Numidian who is promised the chance to kill Acacius (Pedro Pascal) — the Roman general who killed his wife and conquered his country — if he wins enough fights in the fabled Colosseum.

Denzel Washington drew rave reviews as Macrinus, a former slave turned gladiator guru. Other cast members include Peter Mensah, as well as Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi, who both appeared in Gladiator.

At the end of Gladiator, Maximus and Emperor Commodus (Phoenix) duel in the Colosseum, with both dying — putting thumbs down on an easy sequel. Recalls Scott of his decision made in 1999, “One always thinks, ‘Should we really kill them or not?’ But it seemed to be the most dramatic thing to do, which becomes memorable because it really is about immortality.”

It took numerous attempts to pen the sequel, with scripts including Crowe’s Maximus character being resurrected like Jesus and a fantasy version with Maximus being cursed to fight as a soldier for all eternity — ending up as a modern-day general working at the Pentagon.

Instead, the story involving Maximus’ son went back to Ancient Rome. “You have to deal with people’s emotional relationship to [the original] movie and to their proprietary feelings about it,” explains screenwriter David Scarpa. “As much as Ridley wanted the continuity of the world, he was not going to just do a greatest hits album of the first movie.”

The set was as big a star as the actors. Part of the quarter-mile Colosseum was repurposed from Scott’s 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven, which he ironically sold to Morocco for $10 — and had to rent it back for Gladiator II.

One wish-list creature that took Scott 25 years to get into the Colosseum is a rhinoceros! The 6,000-pound horned beasts can’t be trained, and back in 1999, computer imagery wasn’t advanced enough to cheaply create a believable one. Producer Doug Wick noted in 2020, “If we ever do a sequel, Ridley gets his rhino.”

And Scott did — the state-of-the-art, remote-controlled animatronic version that can run at speeds up to 40 mph while being ridden by a sword-wielding man was created by Industrial Light and Magic! Boasts Scott, “Our rhino was real, right down to his legs!”

Denzel says he had a gay scene that was left on the cutting room floor. “I actually kissed a man in the film, but they took it out,” reveals the Glory and Training Day Oscar winner. “I think they got chicken. I kissed a guy full on the lips, and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet. I killed him about five minutes later.”

Talk about hot and cold: The epic boat battle began filming on Malta in the summer of 2023, when temperatures soared to 110 degrees. But an actors’ strike shut down production, and the scene was resumed at the same place in January 2024 in chilly 50-degree temperatures.

Gladiator II drew just one Oscar nomination for Costume Design but lost out to Wicked. The original Gladiator won five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor (Crowe), Best Supporting Actor (Phoenix), Best Director (Scott), and Best Screenplay.

The historical epic film made more than $462 million at the box office against a budget of about $250 million, a tidy sum that fell short of the Gladiator numbers — a $465 million take and a $110 million budget.