Chris Hemsworth Rumored to Be Interested in Producing Gladiator Sequel With Russell Crowe

Gladiator was both a major financial and critical success, going on to earn a number of important Academy Awards, with new rumors emerging that Thor star Chris Hemsworth could be working with original star Russell Crowe to produce a follow-up film. In the original film, Crowe’s Maximums dies in the final scenes, which has made it difficult to consider a direct sequel ever happening, with Hemsworth’s involvement possibly building hope that a new film would unfold in that world but focus on a different character. With the source of these rumors being the gossip magazine New Idea, it’s also possible that the “sources” supporting the concept are purely speculating based on Hemsworth and Crowe being spotted together in Sydney.

“[Hemsworth’s wife Elsa Pataky has] often joked they could easily pass off as father and son – and Russell thinks he could be the only man to credibly play his son in a Gladiator sequel,” the source revealed to the outlet.

A key component of the original Gladiator is that Maximus’ wife and son were both murdered, which served as the motivating factor for him to seek vengeance against Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus. In the two decades since the film was released, a variety of proposed narratives for a follow-up have emerged, with one such plan being that Maximus secretly had a child with Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla, who was actually that film’s Lucius.

In this regard, were Hemsworth to be interested in the endeavor, it’s feasible that he could play the adult Lucius.

Last year, producer Doug Wick confirmed that the filmmakers behind the original film are still interested in continuing the series, so long as they find the story worth telling.

“[Director] Ridley [Scott] would love to do it. It’s really all about getting something on paper,” Wick confirmed to ComicBook.com. “Everyone [involved with the original] loves the movie too much to ever consider cheaply exploiting it and making something that’s a shadow of it. It’s just really a clear creative problem, working on a script, and if we can ever get it to a place … Ridley’s working on it, it’s really just a question of whether we can get it to a place where it feels worthy to make it. It’s a real challenge.”

He added, “But it’s also a real writing problem, too. Like any good movie, Gladiator works by the skin of its teeth, where this fight movie ends up adding up that way, and so, again, to take the best of what the audience is attached to, but make it fresh in some new incarnation, it’s really challenging. And, of course, the leading man is dead. If you do Godfather, you say, ‘Okay, the audience loves these stars in this wardrobe,’ and you bring back the old team.”

Stay tuned for details on the possible future of the Gladiator franchise.

Would you like to see Hemsworth involved in a sequel? Let us know in the comments below!