AA real-scale model of the Colosseum, flooded and filled with boats. A two-ton, life-sized, eight-wheeled rhino that can spin, growl, wag its tail and travel at speeds of 65 km/h. And as much ground beef, sweet potato and personal training as Paul Mescal can tolerate. Those were some of the enormous costs involved in the production of Gladiator II, which hits theaters next month, 24 years after Ridley Scott’s hit original.

It’s fair to assume that such high-profile releases would make studio executives sweat, but Hollywood is banking on the film being a commercial success – especially considering the disastrous box office returns for another recent sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ follow-up his movie. Hit $1 billion in 2019, now accelerated to streaming and expected to lose $200 million.

The glut of Gladiator II headlines still rings true, says Steven Gaydos, editor-in-chief of Variety. “You can see the money on the screen,” he says. The opposite was true for Joker 2: “If they had shot it for $80 million, it would have been hugely profitable. Instead they spent $200 million on two people singing in a room.”

This, Gaydos thinks, was the folly of the director and stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, who got carried away with making the movie they wanted, rather than the movie the audience wanted. Gladiator II, meanwhile, has been smartly tested and budgeted since its inception.

“There is so much computer modeling and predictive analysis these days that Paramount would pretty much know what Gladiator is going to make,” says Gaydos. “If you put certain stars in a movie (Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal join Mescal) and you call it Gladiator II, it will make $750 million and give out season awards, which means extra screening lives, so let’s do that .”

Meanwhile, Scott, now 86, has retained the work ethic and economic pragmatism of his early years in the advertising industry, with little of the authorial indulgence of colleagues like Francis Ford Coppola or even Martin Scorsese. (Killers of the Flower Moon made even less of its $200 million budget at the box office than Joker 2.) Scott is confident enough in the project that he’s already writing the next sequel.

Clever cost-cutting also made the deal even more attractive: much of the film was filmed in Malta, which contributed €47 million in tax credits – an EU record. There are also lucrative and strategic sponsorship relationships, including with Pepsi and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

Whatever the gamble was for Paramount, it seems almost certain that it will pay off. “The few people who have seen the film so far are quite optimistic about it,” Gaydos reports. “It will clearly be a big hit with solid critical reception.”

The template is Top Gun: Maverick, Paramount’s 2022 blockbuster. Both are long-belated second installments of big hits from a Scott brother (Tony Scott shot Top Gun in 1986). Both have the same sweaty, sweaty, macho-sad, demographic appeal that helped Tom Cruise’s film gross a total of $1.5 billion plus six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

“Gladiator II will be a serious, legitimate contender in all major awards categories,” Gaydos predicts, comparing Martin Scorsese’s overdue win as best director for 2007’s The Departed. “Now it’s time for Ridley. He has never won, but is clearly one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema.”

What we know about Gladiator II

Paul Mescal plays Russell Crowe’s son
As all roads lead to Rome, Gladiator II also sees a brave warrior forced into the arena to dethrone exhausted rulers. This time it is Lucius Verus II (Mescal), who lives peacefully in North Africa until a conquering army precipitates his return home. There it is revealed that he is actually the exiled son of Empress Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), and that his father is not the late Emperor Lucius Verus I, but rather the martyr Maximus (Crowe).

Paul Mescal survives
Crowe may not have been so lucky, but Mescal’s character certainly isn’t fatally impaled by sword or horn in Gladiator II, the ending of which Scott has likened to that of The Godfather, “with Michael Corleone given a job he didn’t have.” “I don’t want it, and I wonder, ‘Now, father, what should I do?’ So the next film is about a man who doesn’t want to be where he is.”

Russel Crowe is not included
There are flashbacks, but there appears to be a no-ghost rule in place for the new film, with Russell Crowe neither involved nor consulted. Fellow victim Joaquin Phoenix also doesn’t show up and it seems unlikely that Oliver Reed was resuscitated for the event. However, Derek Jacobi is back.

It might have been very different
Ideas for sequels have been around for over twenty years. One concept that reached a fairly advanced stage of development was called Christ Killer, written by Nick Cave, in which Maximus is raised from Purgatory and sent back to Earth to kill Jesus. He then became involved in the Crusades, World War II and Vietnam before finding work at the Pentagon. Despite Crowe’s enthusiasm, the idea was ultimately scrapped by the studio.