Making of ‘Gladiator II’: Rome Wasn’t Re-Built in a Day — It Took Nearly 25 Years

Since 'Gladiator' hit theaters (and took home five Oscars) in 2000, Ridley Scott has been tinkering with a sequel. One minor issue, though, was that in the first film, he killed off his hero.

For twenty-five years, Ridley Scott has been attempting to fit a rhinoceros into the Colosseum.

He discussed the notion of bringing a real 6,000-pound rhino onto his set during filming his first Gladiator movie in 1999, but animal experts informed him that the horned creatures were too hard to handle. He then spoke with CGI specialists to see if a digital version might be created for the film, but they informed him that the technology was prohibitively costly.

It became a common joke among Scott and his crew for the next 25 years. In a 2020 interview, Scott's producer Doug Wick stated, "Ridley gets his rhino if we ever do a sequel."

Finally, they made a sequel, and Ridley got his rhino. Industrial Light and Magic created a cutting-edge, remote-controlled animatronic rhino that can reach speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, all while being ridden by a man brandishing a sword.

Scott boasts, "Our rhino was real, all the way down to his legs."

Rumors about a sequel had been circulating since Gladiator's May 2000 theatrical launch, and they grew more intense after the DreamWorks film won five Academy Awards, including best picture. But there was at least one major obstacle to Gladiator II's production: the movie's protagonist, Maximus, played by Russell Crowe, dies at the end of Gladiator. Indeed, Emperor Commodus of Joaquin Phoenix, its adversary, does as well.

"One is constantly asking themselves, 'Should we really kill them or not?'" Scott explains why he decided to give the two main characters in the movie his thumb in 1999. "But because it truly is about immortality, it seemed to be the most dramatic thing to do, which makes it memorable."

The prolific Scott, now 86, directed 17 pictures outside of ancient Rome in the following years, including two in space (Alien: Covenant, 2017; Prometheus, 2012). Nevertheless, the notion of going back to the historic Colosseum would not go away.

Scott claims that he was frequently told that Gladiator was their favorite film. "I've watched it fifty times," one man remarked. That struck a chord, then.

Over the years, several attempts had been made to write a sequel script. One early attempt at a sequel was a prequel, which was the brainchild of Gladiator co-writer John Logan. 

Following the rejection of that proposal, Nick Cave was called in to attempt a more ambitious strategy: a fantastical version in which Maximus reappeared as an immortal warrior who would emerge at significant historical events, including World War II. However, this idea never really took off, and once Paramount purchased DreamWorks' live-action library in 2006, work came to a standstill.

Despite several unsuccessful attempts over the years, Scott grew close to writer David Scarpa, who wrote his 2017 drama All the Money in the World and his 2023 Napoleon movie.

 The two collaborated to identify a plot point that did not entail resurrecting Maximus. Rather, the story of Gladiator II begins twenty years later and revolves around Maximus' son Lucius, who was portrayed by child actor Spencer Treat Clark in the first film and by Paul Mescal as an adult in the second.

 During a conflict with Pedro Pascal's character, General Marcus Acacius, the former heir to the Roman Empire is abducted and sold into slavery in Scarpa's screenplay, but he eventually manages to get away, transforming