If gladiator sandals are making a comeback in 2023 thanks to fashion’s ongoing boho obsession, 2024 will be the year Gladiator returns to screens. Ridley Scott – whose Russell Crowe-fronted epic scooped Best Picture at the 2001 Oscars – is officially confirmed to direct a spin-off. Rather than a prequel, as initially reported, Gladiator 2.0 will centre on Lucius Verus, the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla and the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus, as he reaches adulthood.
Trading Connell’s chain for a Roman medallion in the lead role? Normal People’s Paul Mescal, whose recent appearance in Charlotte Wells’s revelatory debut film Aftersun scored him an Academy Award nomination. Nielson will also return as the older Lucilla, while Stranger Things breakout Joseph Quinn has been lined up to play Emperor Caracalla, whom history best remembers for ordering his own brother’s murder. Rounding out the cast? Barry Keoghan, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal in as-yet-unnamed roles.
Scott has yet to reveal details about the plot for the swords-and-sandals drama, but he did confirm to Deadline that the script had “already been written”. “We have a good footprint, a good, logical place to go… There’s enough components from the first one to pick up the ball and continue it.” The Oscar winner has another major period drama to release first, however – having reteamed with Phoenix for his forthcoming Napoleon biopic, which co-stars Vanessa Kirby as Bonaparte’s wife, Joséphine.
As for Mescal – who starred in Vogue’s 2023 Hollywood Portfolio – it will mark his first time taking on a role that is as much about action as emotion, but he’s in no way afraid of brutal physical training. As he recently told Vogue, if he wasn’t acting, he would be doing “Gaelic football. I would’ve broken many more bones in my body, so I’m happy to not be going down that avenue.”
