Ridley Scott reveals how previous Gladiator 2 script planned to bring back Russell Crowe

Director says Crowe wanted to return for sequel, even though his character dies in original film

Even though Russell Crowe is not in Gladiator 2, director Ridley Scott has revealed that Crowe originally wanted to reprise his role, even if it meant bringing him back from the dead.

The sequel to the Oscar winning 2000 film, sees Crowe’s on-screen son, Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, enter the colosseum after Roman emperors Geta and Caracalla, played by  Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger respectively, conquer his home and force him into slavery. The film also stars Pedro Pascal as General Acacius and Denzel Washington as Macrinus, with the latter touted to be a major awards contender.

In a new interview, Ridley Scott explains that Crowe very badly wanted to bring back his character Maximus, the Roman general turned Colosseum fighter who dies at the end of the film.

“Russell and I had a go at it around 18 years ago,” Scott told People magazine. “I had Nick Cave writing the script and I kept saying [to Russell], ‘But you’re dead.’ And he said, ‘I know I’m dead. And I want to come back from the dead.’”

According to a 2018 report in the BBC, musician Cave was commissioned to write a script that would bring Crowe back. Cave’s script would have opened with Maximus in the afterlife, where he meets Roman deities, who offer to reunite him with his dead wife and son if he killed the god Hephaestus. However, Maximus is sent back to the world of the living, but two decades after his death where he fights in the Crusades, the World Wars, Vietnam, and then finally ends up in the Pentagon.

Russell Crowe in Gladiator (Dreamworks/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock)

Understandably, Crowe’s reaction was simple and to the point: “Don’t like it, mate.”

Scott explained in the interview that the only other way he could think of was to create a “portal to bring him back from the dead”.

“The only way of doing it was to go to another battle and through a dying warrior, he comes back into the spirit of the warrior,” Scott said. “So that’s his portal.”

However, this approach didn’t work for Crowe either, since it would mean a different actor was playing the dying warrior. “He said, ‘So that’s no f***ing good, is it?’ It didn’t really work.”

In June, Crowe said he is “slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one”.

“Because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done,” he said, going on to explain that he is not a fan of what he has heard of the new film’s plot.

“A couple of the things I’ve heard I’m like, ‘No, no, no, that’s not in the moral journey of that particular character,’” he said. “But I can’t say anything, it’s not my place, I’m six feet under. So we’ll see what that is like.”

Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal in Gladiator (© 2024 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Asked if he had spoken to Crowe about the role, Mescal, 28, said: “I don’t know what we would talk about.” He continued: “I’d love to hear his stories from filming, but the character is, like, totally separate”.

Gladiator 2 debuted to an estimated $87m at the international box office, making it the biggest overseas opening for any Ridley Scott film.

So far, it has received middling critical reviews and currently sits at a lukewarm 75 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey labeled it “thrilling” in her four-star review but noted that Mescal is no Crowe.

The Independent’s Patrick Smith called it “an awful mess” and questioned what Scott was thinking. “I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Terribly vexed, even,” he wrote. “Scene by scene, Gladiator II just feels... undercooked. There’s no panache, no bombast, no indelible lines.”

Gladiator 2 is playing in theaters now.