Almost 25 years ago, acclaimed filmmaker Ridley Scott revitalised and reinvented a beloved cinematic genre with Gladiator. Gladiator II once again pits a heroic warrior against the might of the Roman Empire in the name of strength and honour. From an aquatic invasion of an ancient fortress to a historically accurate naval battle staged in a flooded Colosseum, Gladiator II is a cinematic event that challenged some of the film industry’s most skilled craftspeople to do justice to Scott’s extraordinary vision.
Ridley Scott Film’s Screenplay PDF Collection
The original film’s journey to the screen started more than 20 years ago when producer Douglas Wick received fascinating research that described how all roads in ancient Rome led to the Colosseum. “Emperors and slaves, politicians and plebeians cheered the bloody spectacle with a devotion that could literally change the course of the empire,” Wick explained.
Wick approached DreamWorks, who loved the prospect of reinventing the sword and sandal epic for a new generation and the studio bought the unwritten pitch from writer David Franzoni. Wick developed a draft with DreamWorks, they took the idea to Scott, and the rest is history.
“The first film has gone on to become an iconic cultural touchstone for film fans all over the globe,” says producer Michael Pruss, president of film at Scott Free Productions, who has spent more than a decade collaborating closely with Scott. “The world of the Roman Empire and the unforgettable characters of Gladiator were so brilliantly crafted. Recreating that on an even grander scale was a necessity. We wanted that same powerful motivation for revenge but something that was also fresh and modern and unique. It took longer than anybody anticipated, but great ideas and human drama take time to craft. Hopefully the results here speak for themselves.”
“Ridley is at the top of his game with Gladiator II,” says Wick. “Imagine coming to the movies after a tough day of work and having Ridley Scott as your tour guide to Ancient Rome. He will transport you into another world that’s vibrant, emotional, dangerous and extremely theatrical, a world full of corruption and deceit. And in his own unsentimental way, he will lead you to last vestiges of strength and honor and you will watch them prevail. It will be a unique and satisfying experience that engages all the senses, but most of all the heart.”
For Scott, one of cinema’s masters of the period picture, Gladiator II is at once specific and timeless. “This film is about the Roman Empire, obviously,” he says. “But it’s also about the way humanity never learns its lesson. We keep repeating history again and again and again.”
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Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honour to return the glory of Rome to its people.
From Page To Screen
Gladiator II has been under discussion since the film’s initial success, according to Scott. “The popularity of Gladiator just kept growing,” he explains. “The film stayed in the public’s mind. I knew we should consider a sequel, but it took years to figure out what the story was going to be.”
“We knew we had to top the original’s gripping action, but also try to capture its emotional intimacy,” according to producer Lucy Fisher, who began developing the new film alongside partner Wick in 2001. “It took a long time to get a story that we thought would be worthy of being a sequel to Gladiator. But once we grabbed onto the character of Lucius as an angry young man, exiled and abandoned, and committed to destroying the city that had both made and betrayed him, our story began to unfold. Lucius would be a lost prince, wanting to be anywhere but Rome, and yet all roads would lead him there.”
That, says Wick, felt like a story worth telling. “But we soon realized that one of the biggest challenges we were going to face was a dilemma the ancient Romans knew well,” he says. “The audience has seen grand combat many times over and their thirst for MORE was unquenchable. Whatever we created had to provide captivating new thrills. A true spectacle for the ages.”
In 2021, Scott approached screenwriter David Scarpa, who wrote the director’s 2017 true-crime drama All the Money in the World, to craft a compelling tale based on a story by Peter Craig (writer of Top Gun: Maverick). It is 15 years after the death of Maximus Decimus Meridius, Crowe’s character in the original. Combat in the Colosseum has become more deadly, violent and spectacular as bloodthirsty crowds urge the half-mad twin emperors to new heights of cruelty. The Roman Empire continues its relentless march across the world, expanding its borders, pillaging every culture in its path and forcing the survivors to fight for their lives in the ring.
“I knew and loved the original,” says Scarpa, who also scripted Scott’s Napoleon. “When Ridley approached me, I was extremely excited. Gladiator is such an esteemed classic and a touchstone for historical action films. I was both honored and a little apprehensive about working with the people who created that world. Ridley has a very strong directorial voice, and his vision is central to the movie.”
Scarpa also notes the inherent challenge of making a sequel to a film in which most of the lead characters have passed. But he found plenty of creative opportunities in picking up the story so many years later. “We started by placing our main character, Lucius, in a situation that is diametrically opposed to Maximus’ story,” says the screenwriter. “Maximus started as a leader in the Roman military who is facing off with an army of barbarians. Lucius is a barbarian defending his home from the invading Romans. Maximus was loyal to the emperor. Lucius hates Rome and everything to do with it. And yet both end up forced to kill or be killed for the amusement of the mob.”
Much of the in-depth research done for the first film was still available for Scarpa to build on. “We started with the real historical Rome,” he says. “Lucius, like Maximus, is not a real historical figure, although Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, and Lucilla are. This film’s twin emperors Caracalla and Geta were real as well, although we took some creative liberties with how their rivalry plays out.”
© 2024 Paramount Pictures. / Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan
“Finding a follow-up for the first movie was a daunting task — particularly since we had killed off our two leads!” says Wick. “That meant we either had to find a new star or make one. It was an incredible risk on a big movie to choose an actor who’s never carried one. And our protagonist also had to be credible as an action hero. Ridley, the producers and the studio all held hands with Paul and jumped off a cliff. We would soon discover that Paul is one of those once-in-a-generation talents who always lands on his feet.”
At the age of 28, Mescal has collected an Olivier Award for Best Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire, and an Oscar nomination for his work in Aftersun. In 2023 he astounded fans with his remarkable performance in the lauded British masterwork All Of Us Strangers.
Being asked to headline a Ridley Scott film was what he calls a “pinch-me moment.” “Ridley Scott’s a king in cinema and especially this genre,” the actor says. “When Ridley comes knocking, you just say yes. It’s definitely been a career highlight for me to watch the way the master’s brain works. And he was incredibly generous about sharing his knowledge and talent with me.”
In his first foray into the action blockbuster genre, Mescal says he is acutely aware of the influence and acclaim associated with the Gladiator title. “It holds a huge amount of weight for a vast number of people across the world. And the scale of it is huge. It’s not like any other role I’ve played. Going from independent features to a blockbuster studio picture was intimidating until I realized that acting is acting is acting, regardless of the context.”
Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington plays Macrinus, a Roman businessman who has amassed enormous wealth thanks to his acumen and brutal ambition. “I think Macrinus was probably a soldier from North Africa who arrived in Rome as a young man,” says the director. “He worked his way up to being a major supplier of food and other goods to the armies and turned that into an empire of steel foundries, shields, swords, and spears.”
The terrifyingly mad twin emperors Caracalla and Geta were an incredible gift to the film taken directly from history. “But we didn’t want another deranged Emperor as our primary antagonist,” says Wick. “Macrinus would be entirely self-made. He is a former slave who wanted not just his freedom but to have slaves of his own, not unlike Marcus Tullis Tiro, who began life as a slave in the home of Roman politician and philosopher Cicero and became a statesman in his own right. He would be very contemporary, as he bought his way into the inner sanctums of Rome.
Pedro Pascal, an Emmy® nominee for his role in the post-apocalyptic thriller series “The Last of Us,” plays General Acacius, a Roman general and the husband of Lucilla. Pascal says he saw Gladiator multiple times when it was first released. It’s been a dream come true for him to work with a director whose films he has admired for so long. “For most of my life, I have only experienced his work as a spectator — eyes wide open and completely dazzled,” he says. “To be part of one of his movies is something I didn’t expect to happen.” Audiences may well find their feelings towards the character shifting back and forth, Pascal believes. “You have to pay attention to the where and why of his allegiances,” the actor says. “Because he is leading the Roman army, you’ll think he’s a villain. But Acacius loves Lucilla, a beloved character from the first movie. So, then he’s a good guy. And the movie plays those tricks on us continually.”
Connie Nielsen once again plays Lucilla, the daughter of the esteemed late emperor Marcus Aurelius and the lover of Maximus.When audiences last saw her, she had left the Colosseum, where both her brother Commodus and Maximus lay dead. Perhaps the most skilled politician in the film, Lucilla knows that the fate of Rome will be settled in blood and makes a heartbreaking decision. “Lucilla has had to be a survivor all of her life,” Nielsen says. “She immediately understood what the death of her brother meant for her and those she cares about. When this movie begins, she’s been through 15 years of upheaval and countless pretenders to the throne.”
Joseph Quinn describes his character as a “sadistic, ruthless emperor who is every bit as unpleasant as his brother.” “Geta is motivated by fear of losing power and by greed,” he continues. “Those are both deplorable traits in a leader. He is full of insecurity and lacks integrity but has an enormous amount of power — a dangerous combination. He has an abundant life and a feeling that it might all get ripped away. They’re totally inept and justifiably distrusting of everyone around them. They need each other to maintain power and balance, but Caracalla’s mind is slowly being eroded by syphilis. I was very lucky in the scene partner I had in Fred. He’s an extraordinary actor and brilliant person.”
Derek Jacobi reprises his Gladiator role of Roman senator Gracchus. He is Lucilla’s staunchest ally and reluctant co-conspirator. The actor, who became a star almost 50 years ago playing a Roman emperor in the BBC miniseries “I, Claudius,” was in retirement, but Scott refused to make the film without him. “I wanted him back,” the director says. “In so many ways, he represents the Old Guard of Rome.” Jacobi was happy to be asked to return to ancient Rome. “Like the original film, this is a great story with an epic quality,” says the actor, whose accolades include BAFTA, Emmy®,and Tony® Awards. “It’s thrilling but extremely moving because it touches on so many points of human existence.”
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Gladiator II was filmed in Morocco and Malta, with a few scenes at Shepperton Studios outside London. To oversee the design and build of ancient Rome, Scott turned to his longtime collaborator, production designer Arthur Max. This is the 16th project Scott and Max have worked on together, a list that includes Gladiator, American Gangster, The Martian and Napoleon.
Special Effects Supervisor Neil Corbould of Industrial Light & Magic, an Oscar® winner for Gladiator, has a long history with Scott. They began their work on the sequel, he recalls, as they always do by discussing how much farther they could push the possibilities of cinema. The film’s most astonishing action sequences came together through a combination of practical sets supplemented by special and visual effects.
Costume designer Janty Yates won an Academy Award® for her work on Gladiator and was thrilled to be back for the sequel. “It’s such a marvelous era to work in,” she says. “I’ve been in space three times since Gladiator and done all sorts of other periods, so I had to give myself a good brush-up on Rome.”
Dave Crossman, who designed costumes for Scott’s Napoleon, created the uniforms for the Roman military and the gladiators, including Mescal’s Lucius. “He has done such brilliant work,” says Yates. “He had to do 150 gladiators, and every single one is different.” More than 2,000 costumes were created by artisans across the world under the supervision of Crossman and his team. “It was my chance to do a Roman epic,” Crossman says.
Director of photography John Mathieson is another of Scott’s regular collaborators and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Gladiator. For him, this film has been a long time coming. “There had been so many rumors about a sequel for so many years and then suddenly it was on,” he says. “The set was slightly different this time, especially in terms of size, but we shot in the same countries, Malta and Morocco.”
In addition to the “Orientalist” paintings of snake charmers, courtesans, and gladiators in exotic locales, Mathieson referred to the Victorian Pre-Raphaelites’ romanticized neoclassical subjects and jewel-toned palette. It was a time when “The Grand Tour” of Europe was a rite of passage, with Italy often as its centerpiece.
Editor Claire Simpson has been working regularly with Scott since his 1987 feature Someone to Watch Over Me. “Ridley always puts together a crew of creative artists in all departments,” she says. “There is a sense of security in belonging to that community. It inspires loyalty and trust.”
The enormous amount of footage produced each day required two editors to keep up with, according to Simpson, who was joined in the editing bay by Sam Restivo. “Otherwise, we would have been overwhelmed by dailies rather than excited and filled with expectation by the potential of the material.”
Photo Credit: Cuba Scott
Composer Harry Gregson-Williams’ previous collaborations with Scott, which include writing the original scores for The Martian, Kingdom of Heaven, The Last Duel, and House of Gucci and writing themes for Prometheus and Exodus: Gods and Kings, had taught him that the work would be demanding but the rewards were more than worth it. “Ridley is an open book when it comes to music,” Gregson-Williams says. “He doesn’t point me to a path and expect me to follow it. He allows me the freedom to experiment. He understands the power of music in a movie like few others do, but never speaks to me in musical terms. He’ll talk to me about light and darkness, shade and texture. He might say, could there be a more abrasive texture in this scene? And I’ll interpret that in a musical way.”
Scott says that for him, music is language. “When you score a film, you’re writing a new language that gives the film an added dynamic,” he explains. “It’s like the final dialogue. Music can make a movie or ruin it, the way an editor can make a mediocre film better or a possibly great film bad.”
Ask anyone on this monumental production what audiences can expect from Gladiator II and their enthusiasm for the project is palpable. “Being on the set was like being a child playing with grown-up toys,” says Washington. “I’d find myself looking at all these Roman soldiers coming down the hill and thinking about old movies like King of Kings or Ten Commandments. Gladiator II feels like that. And it’s a reflection of Ridley’s talent. I know he’d hate me saying these kinds of things, but he’s a grumpy old genius, you know? I love him. He just gets on with it. And he is a visionary.”
RIDLEY SCOTT, p.g.a. (Directed by, Produced by) is a renowned Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker honored with Best Director Oscar® nominations for his work on Black Hawk Down (2001), Gladiator (2000) and Thelma & Louise (1991). Scott recently directed The Last Duel (2021), starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Jodie Comer, and House of Gucci (2021)starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver. He produced A Haunting in Venice (2023) starring Kenneth Branagh, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey and Michele Yeoh; Death on the Nile (2022), starring Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, and Annette Bening; and Boston Strangler on Hulu (2023) starring Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, and Chris Cooper. He most recently directed Napoleon starring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby.
In 1977, Scott made his feature-film directorial debut with The Duellists, for which he won the Best First Film Award at the Cannes Film Festival. He followed with the iconic science-fiction thriller Alien (1979), and the landmark film Blade Runner (1982), which has been added to the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 1993.
Additional film credits as director include The Martian (2015), which received 7 Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, a DGA Award nomination, and 6 BAFTA nominations, including Best Director; Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), starring Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton; The Counselor (2013), written by Cormac McCarthy and starring Michael Fassbender; the acclaimed hit Prometheus (2012), starring Michael Fassbender; G.I. Jane (1997), starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen; Hannibal (2001), starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore; Body of Lies (2008), starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; Robin Hood (2010), marking his fifth collaboration with star Russell Crowe; Alien: Covenant (2017), the sequel to Prometheus; and All the Money in the World (2017), starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams.
Scott and his late brother Tony formed the commercial and advertising production company RSA in 1967. In 1995, the Scott brothers formed the film and television production company Scott Free Productions. Recent Scott Free projects include A Sacrifice, a thriller written and directed by Jordan Scott, starring Eric Bana and Sadie Sink, and Alien: Romulus, the newest movie in the Alien franchise, directed by Fede Álvarez.
On television, Scott executive produced the Emmy®, Peabody and Golden Globe® winning hit “The Good Wife,” for CBS and its critically acclaimed CBS All Access spin-off “The Good Fight;” the series adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s classic “The Man in the High Castle” for Amazon; AMC’s anthology series “The Terror;” and Steven Knight’s gritty adaptation of the Charles Dickens’ classic “Great Expectations” for FX/BBC1.
In 2024, Scott was awarded a Knight Grand Cross in honor of his services to the UK film industry. In 2003, Scott was awarded a knighthood from the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contributions to the arts. He received the 30th American Cinematheque Award at the organization’s annual gala in 2016, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Motion Picture Direction at the 2017 Directors Guild of America Awards, and the Academy Fellowship honor at the 2018 BAFTA Awards.
DAVID FRANZONI (Based on Characters Created by, Produced by) is an Academy Award winning and Emmy nominated screenwriter and producer with over 38 years of experience in the entertainment industry.
Notable film credits include Jumpin’ Jack Flash (dir. Penny Marshall), Amistad (dir. Steven Spielberg), and King Arthur (dir. Antoine Fuqua). Franzoni has also worked in television, writing Citizen Cohn (dir. Frank Pierson), which he has an Emmy nomination in addition to a Cable ACE Award, the Pen Center USA Literary Award and The George Foster Peabody Award.
Franzoni is well known for writing and producing Gladiator (dir. Ridley Scott), which he has won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Film Award, and a PGA Award, along with receiving Academy Award and BAFTA nominations for Best Original Screenplay.
Franzoni most recently worked on Gladiator II where he reunited with Ridley Scott. The sequel comes 24 years after the first film and is set to release this fall.
DAVID SCARPA (Screenplay by, Story by) is an accomplished screenwriter whose latest project, Gladiator II, marks his third collaboration with the legendary director Ridley Scott, following their successful partnership on All the Money in the World (2017) and last year’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and raised in Tennessee and Connecticut, Scarpa is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied Film and Television. Scarpa began his career with notable screenplays such as The Last Castle, featuring Robert Redford and James Gandolfini, and the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring Keanu Reeves. His work extended to television as well, where he served as Executive Producer and Showrunner for the final season of “The Man in the High Castle.”
Several of Scarpa’s original screenplays have earned critical acclaim, with works like Londongrad and All the Money in the World making their way onto the prestigious Black List. His future projects include the highly anticipated Cleopatra, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and Sony’s upcoming adaptation of Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth.
PETER CRAIG (Story by) is a crime novelist and screenwriter, whose credits include The Town (2010), The Batman (2022), Bad Boys For Life (2021), and Parts 1 and 2 of The Hunger Games; Mockingjay (2014, 2015). He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2022 for his contributions to Top Gun: Maverick. His upcoming series, “Dope Thief,” will air in early 2025, the pilot episode of which was directed by Ridley Scott.