Gladiator 2 may not have Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, and loyal servant to the true emperor Marcus Aurelius, but it will have Denzel Washington, Screen Rant reported.
Ridley Scott's sequel to the 2000 film is scheduled for release on Nov. 24, 2024, but not much is known about the plot other than Paul Mescal's Lucius, now an adult, a mysterious role for Pedro Pascal, and of course, Denzel.
Denzel Washington: billionaire, retired gladiator?
He may not be named yet, but Washington will play an ex-gladiator who earned enough in the arena to buy his freedom. Scott gave a few more details and said that Washington's former gladiator becomes rich after his time fighting in the Colosseum, but holds no love for the Roman empire.
Black gladiators
Going by both the movie and history, there have been black gladiators. Remember that its height the Roman empire spanned 5 million square kilometers (1.9 square miles) covering Europe, Africa and Asia. The earliest surviving mention of Africans in the Roman empire was in Homer's Odyssey where the author describes Aethiopians as the most far-off of men.
And Washington's character's antipathy towards the empire makes sense as well. Historically speaking, gladiators ran the gamut of volunteers, criminals and slaves. One way an enslaved gladiator could buy back their freedom is to earn enough from the fights.
In the first movie, Russel Crowe's Maximus drove the plot forward. It was also Crowe's star-making turn. He had already been in two award-winning and critically acclaimed films before that, 1997's L.A. Confidential and 1999's The Insider. But it was his role as the father to a murdered son and husband to a murdered wife that won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.
How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Obviously, Denzel Washington does not need a star-making turn of any kind. However, the movie will need his star power. It makes sense that he would be playing a character a lot different from Crowe's. It makes even more sense that while they share the same background as gladiators, the way they became gladiators would be different as well.
Maximus' hatred for the empire stems from Commodus' (Joaquin Phoenix) betrayal, starting with the murder of his father, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). We don't yet know Washington's character's background, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were wildly different from Crowe's highly respected general.
Since Gladiator 2 is set 20 years after the first movie, it will follow an older Lucius who refuses to inherit his uncle's title as Caesar. With Maximus gone, the role of the young would-have-been emperor's mentor is wide open and who better than someone played by Denzel Washington? And maybe Washington's character also gets to have his vengeance… hopefully in this life and not the next.
Nov. 24, 2024 can't come too soon to see this all unfold.
I wonder if, by the time Gladiator 2 is released, people would still be asking how often one thinks about the Roman empire.
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