‘It’s crazy’: Russell Crowe opens up on why he thinks Gladiator II missed ‘the moral core’
More than a year after Gladiator II hit the cinemas, Russell Crowe is still unmoved by the sequel to the film that earned him an Oscar. The actor, who immortalized Maximus in Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic, has again questioned whether the sequel understood what made the original unique.
Speaking on Australia’s Triple J radio, Crowe said the creative team “did not actually understand what made the first one special.” As he also said last year, he was already “slightly uncomfortable” with the idea of a sequel. “Because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done.”
‘It’s crazy’
Crowe argued that the heart of Gladiator was never its spectacle. “It wasn’t the pomp. It wasn’t the circumstance. It wasn’t the action,” he told Triple J. “It was the moral core.”
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He recalled that during production of the original film, he fought daily to protect Maximus’ integrity, particularly against suggestions that the character should have additional romantic entanglements. Producers repeatedly pushed for sex scenes, Crowe said. He believed would have betrayed the character’s loyalty to his murdered wife and child.
“You’re taking away his power,” he said, per the New York Post. “So, at the same time he had this relationship with his wife, he was f***ing this other girl? What are you talking about? It’s crazy.”
Crowe took particular issue with the sequel’s revelation that Maximus fathered an illegitimate son with Lucilla (Connie Nielsen): a plot twist he believes contradicts everything that drove the original story. Paul Mescal’s Lucius, the protagonist of Gladiator II, is revealed to be Maximus’s child, something Crowe says fundamentally distorts his character’s emotional core.
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The actor was not involved in the sequel, which stars Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Nielsen.
Crowe said he heard from upset fans soon after the film premiered. “Women in Europe… would come talk to me and complain,” he told Triple J. “And I’d say, ‘Hey, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it.’”
Gladiator II arrived in November 2024 to mixed critical reaction. The film earned just one Oscar nomination (Best Costume Design) and grossed over $462 million, a strong performance but still trailing the 2000 original’s $465 million haul. Screenwriter David Scarpa previously told The Hollywood Reporter that creating the sequel meant dealing with audiences’ “proprietary feelings” toward the first film.
