'Gladiator II' Hopes to Make Sword-and-Sandal Films the Next Big Thing

It took a good decade, but the fantasy genre craze finally reached a natural endpoint. Much like the precipitous drop in moviegoers seeing superhero films, there's a point when too many streaming services have too many fantasy adaptations of novels, and audiences start gravitating to what they haven't had in a while. (Case in point: CBS' Matlock reboot.) However, as one genre fades, another rises, and there's been a recent spate of old-school "sword-and-sandal" stories trying to rush into the space fantasy titles have left behind. The latest is an attempt to revive the last box office blockbuster to make good on the genre, the 2000's Gladiator, with the quarter-century-later follow-up sequel, Gladiator II.

The original Gladiator made Russell Crowe a household name in his lead role of Maximus. Gladiator II hopes to do the same for Paul Mescal, who now steps into the lead role of Maximus' son, whose fortune has put back in the slave-to-coliseum chum pipeline. Ridley Scott, who directed the first film and returns to the franchise to helm the second one, also hopes to bring about a Gladiator III, at least a little faster than this first 25-year gap, telling reporters he's already started writing it.

Scott has been pushing for a sequel since 2001 after Gladiator's success and has had a script featuring Maximus' son Lucius ready to go since 2003. However, the rights to the franchise were sold to Paramount along with the rest of Dreamworks in 2006, leaving the possibility of a sequel film in limbo for almost two decades. But as he was readying Napoleon for production in 2021, Scott revealed Gladiator II was lined up to be his next project.