Denzel Washington Is Poised to Sign On for Gladiator Sequel

There are as yet few details. Ridley Scott is on board as director, and the character “Lucius,” a child in the first movie, is returning as an adult.

But here’s the thing: “Gladiator” ended as something of an alternate history movie. Maximum killed the emperor Commodus in the Colosseum (unlike in reality where he was assassinated by a wrestler). It was implied fairly strongly that Maximus’s desire to see Rome restored to an emperor-less republic would be adhered to. I suspect that the sequel will simply gloss over those details and restore something like Roman history, emperors and all. Commodus died in 192AD; if the sequel takes place 25 years later in 217 AD, that would mean Marcus Opellius Macrinus would be emperor. That said… it would be interesting if they decided to run with the alternate history idea, Rome restored to a Republic. Twenty five years might be too few to make major changes in Rome… but maybe not. The possibilities are endless.

As unconventional as that approach might be, it’s nothing on the “Gladiator 2” that was originally pitched. That one saw Russel Crowe’s Maximus return as the main character… a neat trick given as he’s dead and all, but the script ran with it, throwing in the Roman gods sending dead Maximus on a mission to hunt down Jehovah. I highly doubt any studio would have *ever* approved such a wacky movie, but, hey, given the rapid advanced in AI, perhaps soon it will be made anyway.