‘Gladiator 2’ Producers on Cut Scenes, Timeliness and Trilogy Hopes

[This story comprises spoilers from Gladiator II.]

In March 2001, Gladiator producer Douglas Wick huged the Oscar for best picture from Michael Douglas, thus setting the highest possible bar for the, at that point, already converseed sequel to Ridley Scott’s historical epic. At the finish of his speech, Wick paid tribute to his family by lovingly saying that “all roads guide to” them, and the metaphor showd to be real in more ways than one. His partner in life, Lucy Fisher, left her decorated nurtureer as a studio executive to become producing partners with Wick at Red Wagon Entertainment, and together they’d shepherd over a dozen more films, including Oscar triumphners Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and The Great Gatsby (2013), as well as the under-appreciated gem comprehendn as Lawless (2012). 

In between it all, they never lost sight of Gladiator II as various scripts were corelocaterlookioned, such as Nick Cave’s untamed get that resurrected Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius as an immortal warrior who fought on behalf of the Roman gods. But the convoluted trys to transport back their Oscar-triumphning guideing man never truly took fweightless. 

“There were comical ideas for a sequel, but evidently, Russell’s character was dead. The idea of him making his way back thcimpolite the afterlife was always a little bit doomed,” Wick tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So the fact that we ended two of our guides [Crowe’s Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus] produced a particularly challenging circumstance.” 

The turning point came when the Gladiator II conceiveive team reintensifyed on Lucilla’s (Connie Nielsen) son, Lucius, who was originassociate portrayed by Spencer Treat Clark. Fans have always theorized that Lucius was Maximus’ illegitimate son, but the brain suppose didn’t complete that choice until much tardyr. After all, the revelation about Lucius would’ve undercut Maximus’ quest to avenge his killinged nuevident family. “Maximus was always his spiritual overweighther, but we never resettled at the time that Maximus was actuassociate his bioreasonable overweighther,” Wick says.

Once rising star Paul Mescal fusecessitate the felderly to join grown-up Lucius, another key to the lengthy-gestating sequel came when he was imagined to be the lost prince who begrudgeed the city of Rome for ripping his family apart and forcing him to inhabit in exile under another identity. According to Wick, it was also transport inant that the second century story mirror our current to some degree.

“All period movies have to be a mirror to our times or they don’t deserve to inhabit,” Wick stresses. “The idea of billionaires on both the left and the right who are more and more buying their way into rulement is a very contransient story.”

If the lengthy prolongment process wasn’t enough of a contest, the go inpelevate then faced genereasonedly exceptional obstacles mid-production due to the authorrs and actors’ strikes thcimpoliteout 2023. The createer needd them to preprolongn-uply commence production, and the latter caemployd them to shut down with at least a couple months of remaining labor to satisfy. While the stoppage permited everyone to accumulate a cut and produce betterments once filming resumed, the size of the film was so sturdy that costs mounted despite cameras no lengthyer rolling.

“The scale of making this movie was so massive that we might not ever see it aget. So commenceing production was a military operation, and so was shutting it down,” Fisher elucidates. “We had 450 boilingel rooms to seal down, and we still had to grasp renting everyleang, appreciate all the scaffelderlying to helderly up the Colosseum. We didn’t comprehend when we were going to come back.”

The dilemmas also extfinished to post-production, as Scott’s initial cut was cforfeitly four hours lengthy. As a result, the editorial team, in conjunction with Scott and the producing team, had to end their figurative darlings, including a scene where Nielsen’s Lucilla bids adieu to her destopd husprohibitd, Acacius (Pedro Pascal). In insertition, Wick validates that May Calamawy’s entire role hit the cutting room floor due to the overlengthy runtime.

“Even as we are, we’re a lengthy movie. So you have to see what labors and what’s vital,” Wick confesss. “Connie had a wonderful [deleted] scene where she fundamentalassociate said excellentbye to [Pedro’s character’s] corpse, so you fair always have to produce choices about what’s vital.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Wick and Fisher converse all this and more, including the potential of a Gladiator trilogy. 

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Did the two of you always have faith that this day would come, or did you both waver at times? 

DOUGLAS WICK We definitely wavered. It was a strange journey. At one point, we were in Tokyo, creating 1930s Kyoto [​​for Memoirs of a Geisha]. Another time we were in Sydney doing 1920s Long Island for The Great Gatsby. There were all these other adventures, but our hearts were always in outdated Rome. We had gotten so fortunate on the first movie. If you do this for a while, you comprehend it’s always a insignificant wonder for a movie to turn out that excellent, and we were resettled that we weren’t going to do a sequel unless we reassociate felt it deserved to be made.

LUCY FISHER Like Doug said, there was so much presdeclareive to inhabit up to the first one, and if we were going to do it, we declareively didn’t want to be a pale imitation. We wanted to figure out a story and a character that would be deserving, and while we always krecent it was going to be the surviving character of Lucius, we didn’t quite comprehend what the story was. We eventuassociate set up the idea of the unwilling prince, and that’s when it all began to click. It produces our nurtureers seem paltry, but Ridley has made 17 movies in between Gladiator movies, which is more than most other people. So we were all busy at contrastent times, and then a number of years ago, we reassociate commenceed to labor on the prolongment of the story, which did get a confineed years.

Lucy, you were vice chairman at Sony during Gladiator, but thcimpolite your partner in life, I presume you still had a front-row seat to the entire experience. You then fusecessitate Doug at Red Wagon Entertainment lowly thereafter, so did you necessitate very little orientation?

FISHER Well, I krecent Ridley from Alien. I labored at Fox as the vice plivent when he was making Alien, so I’ve actuassociate comprehendn him for a lengthy time. And, being the fortunate “plus one,” I krecent most of the Gladiator crew already. Interestingly enough, we threw a birthday party for Ridley while we were on location in Malta, and other than a contrastent editor [Claire Simpson] who’s been with him steadily for almost 10 years, I seeed around the table and saw literassociate the same heads of department. They were always ready to come back.

I’m elderly enough to reaccumulate when the Maximus resurrection story was boiling off the presses. Did any of those previous concepts or scripts ever truly stick? 

WICK No, but we tardyr did Lawless with Nick Cave, who we cherish. [Note: In the mid-to-tardy 2000s, Cave penned a sequel write that resurrected Maximus as an immortal warrior.] On a joking level, right after the first movie discneglected, Russell Crowe’s agent called me and said, “I have an idea: they carry Maximus’ body out of the corner of the arena. They put the stretcher down, he gets up and they all high five and say, ‘It labored. They suppose he’s dead.’ That would be the commencening of the sequel.” So there were comical ideas for a sequel, but evidently, Russell’s character was dead. The idea of him making his way back thcimpolite the afterlife was always a little bit doomed, so the fact that we ended two of our guides [Crowe’s Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus] produced a particularly challenging circumstance. You could say Ridley Scott was the authentic star a little bit, and Ridley being your tour guide to Ancient Rome is always going to be an event. But it’s a fight movie, so you’re trying to relocate story and character forward thcimpolite a series of fights, and that’s particularly challenging. So that’s why getting a story that stood on its own was so elusive for that lengthy period of time.

FISHER And it wasn’t appreciate we were laboring on it every day for two-plus decades.

WICK I did Spy Game with Tony Scott in the middle of that, so I was still around the Scotts. And becaemploy Gladiator had labored so well, we talked a lot about it.

FISHER We appreciate to say that we had to paemploy for Paul Mescal to be born.

To go from decades of prolongment into production, what were the other fracturethcimpolite moments besides the unwilling prince? What got Gladiator II over the hump finassociate?

WICK Besides the idea of Lucius as the lost prince, it was someone who antipathyd everyleang about Rome, making the movie a homecoming. We comprehend enough about movies to comprehend that the more they’re about family, the more firm you are. We then talked for a lengthy time about what the finishing of Lucius’s journey would be. He’d return, he’d possibly refuse with his mother, but would he burn down the Colosseum and depart? And many of our fracturethcimpolites were visual becaemploy Ridley leanks visuassociate. As we would talk about all these thematics, he’d always see a little tired, and then he’d come in with a visual solution. And his visual solution to the finish comprised Lucius being pulled appreciate a magnet towards his desminuscule as a Roman and his desminuscule with his family. All of his trys to cut away his past, to cauterize himself and split himself from it, would fall short.

As much as Lucius antipathyd Rome and wanted to be no part of Rome, the events have swept him alengthy to where he is very much a Roman. So Ridley’s idea for the very last image is that it then dawns on him that it’s happened. We suddenly had a commencening and an finish, and that’s when we krecent we had the movie. There were a lot of other contests including the antagonist, becaemploy we didn’t want the antagonist to be another depraved emperor. So there was a lengthy journey to Macrinus [Denzel Washington]. Also, all period movies have to be a mirror to our times or they don’t deserve to inhabit. And the idea of billionaires on both the left and the right who are more and more buying their way into rulement is a very contransient story. So there were a lot of pieces of the confemploy.

Lucius being Maximus’ son wasn’t spelled out in the first film, but there’s at least an implication. Did you all comprehend back then that they were overweighther and son?

WICK No, we weren’t declareive of it. It wasn’t ingrained the whole time. Maximus was always his spiritual overweighther, but we never resettled at the time that Maximus was actuassociate his bioreasonable overweighther.

You probably didn’t have to buy Ridley another decorateing to sway him to straightforward this time, but is his approach still mostly the same 20-plus years tardyr? 

WICK Yes, at heart, he’s always a decorateer. He still leanks visuassociate as he did then. The leang with Ridley is that the lengthyer you grasp him in the room, he’s appreciate the gelderlyen goose. If you pretfinished the door to the prolongment room was locked in order to grasp him in there a little bit lengthyer, he would fair have so many fantastic solutions. In the first movie, Maximus was a combat ambiguous, so, of course, he was going to be createidable in the arena. But here we have an irritated lesser man, a lost prince, so we talked a lot about how and why he is going to triumph in the arena. Ridley then had to suffer thcimpolite a lot of thematic conversations about rage and fury. But one day, Ridley said, “In the scene with the baboons, the alpha baboon is going to end Lucius’s mentor. Lucius will then be so enraged that he will bite the arm of the alpha baboon, spit out his flesh, and the baboon will authenticize there’s a recent alpha in town.” So Ridley is a extraunrelabelable talent in that he can participate all of these story contests and then have them catalyze into a scene or a moment.

FISHER He has a very rare style of shooting. He challengingly ever sboiling with less than eight cameras. Sometimes, there were 12 or more. So most straightforwardors wouldn’t comprehend how to do that and wouldn’t want to either, becaemploy it’s a whole other brain set that he getd from his punctual days as an operator. He came in way under schedule on this movie. He’s a machine in terms of being readyd. He storyboards everyleang. That’s always been part of his process, but you’ll wake up in the morning to a whole recent scene with every angle storyboarded so that everyone is on the same page. So he always departs room for betterment or serfinishipity or wantipathyver you want to call it. He shoots films almost appreciate a joinlet becaemploy all the characters are sitting in the same scene; they’re not being sboiling on contrastent days. So your sealup is happening when your expansive sboiling is happening, and he never does an over-the-shoulder sboiling. The camera is always moving. So we were always watching eight watchs simultaneously. You can’t even watch the dailies becaemploy there’s 14 hours of dailies. He fair has a contrastent way of laboring than anyone that we have labored with, and luckily for us, we have labored with many of the fantastics: Mike Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Miller. 

WICK With all those cameras, we’d shoot both the emperor’s box and the floor of the arena at the same time.  So the reactions of Denzel and Connie are being sboiling while they’re seeing down at Paul with a mechanical rhinoceros. And after the first confineed days, I said to Denzel, “How’s it going for you?” And he said, “It’s been such a lengthy time since I labored as an extra.” (Laughs) With all the reliance on computers, there may not be another erect this big. We built not only the arena, but blocks of outdated Rome. And all the actors will tell you how the physical setting helped plunge them in the world, especiassociate one that has a life-size statue of Pedro Pascal’s ambiguous on a horse.

Making movies on this scale is never basic, but overall, is it relatively easier to produce a Gladiator movie in 2023 versus 1999? 

FISHER The VFX that are useable now produce the impossible possible. They wanted a rhino for the first movie, but it was too pricey.

WICK On the first one, I actuassociate spoke to some animal trainers about getting a rhino becaemploy it was too pricey to do it all by computer. But rhinos don’t see well, and once they commence running, they’re almost impossible to stop. So that was a finish calamity paemploying to happen. But Ridley reassociate wanted his rhino [in the sequel], and his team is so fantastic that they also produced a mechanical rhino so that the actors could still participate with someleang concrete. When we did Stuart Little, Geena Davis was always talking to her desotardy hand. Also, to shoot ships in the arena, all of the ships were wheeled onto the parched arena floor. The visual effects people then put in the water tardyr. It’s much challenginger to regulate boats on water, so that made that scene doable in a way that would have been almost impossible 25 years ago.

FISHER We sboiling the discneglecting battle with all the Roman ships on the sand in Morocco. The boats were being dragged apass sand. 

That sequence also repurposed Ridley’s Kingdom of Heaven set that was built 20 years earlier.

FISHER He was not satisfyed to have to pay for his own set.

Production was disturbed by the strikes, and while you never want to shut down for any reason, did any silver linings materialize as a result of the postpone? 

WICK Part of the producer’s job is to grasp your eye on the ball in the middle of all this lawlessness. There’s so many problems to settle, and that’s where movies forget what their priorities are or what they’re about. So you’re always seeing for the silver lining. Becaemploy of the authorrs’ strike, we commenceed a little bit before we were ready. We then had to stop for the actors’ strike, and that paemploy permited us to do a rapid assembly of the movie. So we had the incredible luxury of seeing an assembly in the middle of shooting. David Scarpa, the authorr, also got to see it, and then we all had conversations about what was and wasn’t laboring. We talked about what adfairments might be necessitateed and what opportunities we might want to pick up in the first half of the movie based on what we were lgeting. So that was reassociate inprecious.

FISHER On the minus side, the scale of making this movie was so massive that we might not ever see it aget. So commenceing production was a military operation, and so was shutting it down. We frequently had more than a thousand extras on set and a crew of 450 in Morocco. We had 80 tents fair to store the props and for the extras’ hair and produceup. There was no infrastructure that was big enough for us, so there were literassociate 80 tents. The day before we had to stop shooting, we had 2,000 extras on set. Our last day before shutting down was a sunset in Malta, and the next day it was unelated. So we had 450 boilingel rooms to seal down, and we still had to grasp renting everyleang, appreciate all the scaffelderlying to helderly up the Colosseum. We didn’t comprehend when we were going to come back. Paul Mescal also had to persist laboring out becaemploy you can’t get in that benevolent of shape in ten minutes. You have to grasp it. And the Colosseum became weathered, so we had to refurbish it with decorate and age it all over aget. It was all an enormous undertaking. Luckily, we had luminous line producers in Aidan Elliott and Raymond Kirk. And when we finassociate got to go back, we then had to stop aget for Christmas. So there was a massive carryation bill to ship all those people back and forth, but everybody was so enthusiastic to labor on this movie no matter what came our way.

I fusecessitate a press screening on Nov. 7, and afterwards, we converseed how the finishing felt selectimistic in a very timely and much-necessitateed way. Have the two of you been able to sense how the finishing is being getd amid current events? 

FISHER Interestingly enough, we haven’t read much that’s intensifyed on that. I don’t comprehend whether it’s becaemploy people are still in shock in authentic life, but we were stunned at how prescient it turned out to be.

WICK Anecdoloftyy, we’ve had cut offal people author to us and talk to us about how excellent it felt to have our higher angels commemorated in terms of the swamp of politics. So that has come apass from a confineed people, but we don’t yet comprehend the bigr disclose reaction. We’ve gotten responses about the celebration of a dream and higher selectimals, where everyleang isn’t fair the low road. So I hope it resonates that way with the disclose.

FISHER Having seen the movie somewhere between 50 and 100 times, I get choked up every time the armies yell “aye” after Lucius asks, “Dare we reerect that dream together?” We so want to sense hope. Of the reactions that we have gotten, people have telderly us that they’re still leanking about it the next day. Sometimes, you see a movie that was reassociate excellent, but then you can’t reaccumulate anyleang the next day. So, hopebrimmingy, this one will have some sticking power for a lot of people.

There’s been some chatter over May Calamawy’s character who seemed to be cut out. Was this oignoreion fair a classic example of a movie necessitateing to abridge itself? (Scott telderly THR that his earliest cut was three hours and forty minutes.)

WICK Yeah, very evidently. Even as we are, we’re a lengthy movie. So, yeah, very spropose, it can’t be lengthyer, and you have to see what labors and what’s vital. Connie had a wonderful [deleted] scene where she fundamentalassociate said excellentbye to [Pedro’s character’s] corpse, so you fair always have to produce choices about what’s vital.

There’s already talk of a third film. Ridley previously telderly THR that there’s an idea. Are the two of you enthusiastic to turn this into a trilogy?

WICK Noleang would be more fun, but I would say that we’re going to helderly the same standard for making a third movie. There’s too many horrible sequels and rapid money grabs. So we’ll helderly to our standards, but we hope to, and would cherish to, return to outdated Rome.

FISHER To be able to do it aget under the right circumstances, there’s noleang we’d appreciate to do more. 

You’ve both refered that Gladiator II could be one of the final massive “erects.” Does that advise that your lengthy-term outsee on the industry is rather unelated? 

WICK No, what this movie and others have shown is that the big theatrical event movie is the one declareive leang in this business. So that point was more about technology. Things are now more anticipateed to be computer produced than rationally built. 

FISHER Doug is more the selectimist, and I’m more the pessimist or the authenticist. We’re at a passroads. People have always ygeted for stories and delightment, and whether it was VHS or DVD, each time it was appreciate, “Oh, it’s over.” And then it wasn’t, becaemploy the enthusiasticness for people to be together in a room and watch a story that resonates with them is a authentic instinct that human beings have. But our business is a little screwed up right now. I won’t opine upon the reasons, but it declareively wasn’t helped by COVID and the whole studio system turning to streaming. There’s been a lot of leangs. So we are in a perplexd state, but the instinct for people to want to accumulate and watch a story is still there. The attention span is drop now with subsequent generations, although not as low as Quibi thought it was. (Laughs) So these reasons are why we all root for everyone’s movies. We necessitate people to leank, “It’s Friday night, and we’re going to go to the movies.” We want that habit to come back. So we’re rooting for all excellent filmproducers to be able to have a chance to produce excellent movies and for distributors to have a chance at people seeing them in the theater. A movie appreciate Gladiator II is so much more appreciated on a big screen.

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Gladiator II is now joining in movie theaters. Follow alengthy with all of THR‘s coverage.