Gladiator Sequel Has A Completed Script

It has been about five years since serious reports about a sequel to Ridley Scott's Gladiator started to circulate, and now it seems the script for the follow-up is finally complete. Last fall, Scott said that the sequel would be ready to go as his next feature film, and casting rumors have been going for a while now, so it would not be surprising to hear some of he details about the film coming together pretty quickly in the coming weeks and months. Despite being somewhat hesitant to return to the world of the 22-year-old film, Scott found an approach that excited him.

Ironically, the only thing now standing between Scott and getting to work on Gladiator 2 is a film featuring Gladiator baddie Joaquin Phoenix. Scott is currently in production on Kitbag, which stars Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte.

"Oh, it's been written. It's already been written," Scott promised Collider. "We have a good footprint, a good, logical place to go. You can't just do another Gladiator type movie. You've got to follow...there's enough components from the first one to pick up the ball and continue it."

"First of all, I love doing period films. I love the research. I love to create sort of smells of the period," Scott said back in November."I think what we did with the first Gladiator…I don't like being critical of other things that have happened before, but I wasn't the biggest fan of Hollywood Roman epics, honestly. They felt artificial and so, when I was asked to consider a script, the script was not very good. But the person who gave it to me said, I want to show you one thing, and he picked up an illustration, this is true, it's called For Those About to Die by Gérôme. He holds it up. It's a picture of this big painting of the Coliseum, and in the corner there is this guy, about to tuna fork this poor bastard," Scott added. "He's got this thing in his neck, and he's looking up for permission to kill. I went, bloody hell, that's never been done properly before. Never. I said, I'll do it. He said you will? I said yes. Did you want to read the script? I said no, and we went off and hit the ground running around the table, and evolved the new material."

Keep your eyes on ComicBook for more updates as the Gladiator sequel becomes a reality.