Two decades after winning a handful of Academy Awards, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is finally getting a sequel. Earlier this month it was revealed Paul Mescal landed the coveted lead role of an adult Lucius, the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla. According to reports, Mescal auditioned for the role alongside Timothée Chalamet, Miles Teller, and Austin Butler. As it turns out, however, at least one of those actors was never in the running.
According to Chalamet’s agent, the actor hasn’t auditioned for a role in nearly a decade and has been too busy filming Dune 2 to participate in any other productions. “I know one of these actors was shooting a film in the Middle East for the past several months – and he hasn’t auditioned for anything in more than 7 years,” agent Brian Swardstrom tweeted over the weekend.
Videos by ComicBook.com
According to Scott, who’s set to return to direct the sequel from a script by David Scarpa, the screenplay has been put together for quite some time.
“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 2021.”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.”
Scott’s initial Gladiator movie is now streaming on Paramount+.
Related Posts
-
Gladiator 2 releases a new look at the cast.
