Gladiator 2 might not even be out yet, and Ridley Scott might be getting quite close to his 90s, but he’s already working on a script for a third one.
After a 24 year gap, the 2000 historical epic classic Gladiator is finally getting a sequel, with Ridley Scott still at the helm, an impressive thing considering the director is 86 (and he’ll be 87 next month, too). That’s quite the wait for a sequel, especially one so directly connected as it is, but if Scott gets his way you probably won’t be waiting so long for the third one. While a third film hasn’t officially been announced in any capacity, in a recent interview with Total Film (in the magazine’s final issue, via GamesRadar) Scott shared that he’s currently working on a script for it, even if he hasn’t written all that much of it yet.
“I’ve already got eight pages,” Scott said. “I’ve got the beginning of a very good footprint.” There’s obviously not too much there yet, but the director does clearly have an idea as to where he’s going with it, saying, “If there’s a Gladiator 3, I don’t think you’d ever go back into the arena. But I had to go back into the arena…” What that means for the upcoming second film, and this hypothetical third film, isn’t clear, but I’m sure all you die hard Gladiator fans (there has to be some of you, right?) it’ll be an enticing comment.
Scott also spoke about the legacy of the original Gladiator, saying, “The first movie really definitely touched the imagination in a way I didn’t quite expect. Because when they heard that Ridley is doing a Roman epic – a sword-and-spear-and-sandal movie – there was a lot of sniggering. Because up to that date, they’d always been very, you know, old-style Hollywood. And I knew what to do.”
Gladiator 2 is out November 15 in the UK, November 22 in the US.
