His name is Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner and Alien, denier of the fact checking legions, loyal servant to the true art form, cinema. Father to three living sons, husband to a living wife. And he will have ideas for more Gladiator movies in this life or the next. Or, as a less-committed-to-the-bit journalist may report it, in an interview with French film magazine Premiere ahead of the release of his upcoming swords-and-sandals epic sequel Gladiator II, Sir Ridley Scott has revealed that a third trip to Ancient Rome is very much on his mind already.
Talking to Premiere over Zoom, the legendary British filmmaker — whose long-awaited Gladiator sequel is set to chronicle how Lucius (Paul Mescal), son of slave-turned-gladiator Maximus, confronts the power structures of Imperial Rome — talked up his hopes to turn his Roman duology into a full-blown trilogy. "I'm already playing with the idea of Gladiator 3," said Scott. "No, seriously! I lit the wick… The end of Gladiator II evokes that of the Godfather, with Michael Corleone who finds himself with a job he did not want, and who wonders, 'and now, Father, what am I doing?' The next [film] will therefore be about a man who does not want to be where he is." Adding fuel to the Gladiator 3 fire, Mescal added in his own Premiere interview: "Yes, Ridley told me about it, but only yesterday! So I'm waiting to see what will happen, but it interests me, of course. But we must not rush anything: history must stand."
After a near quarter of a century wait for Gladiator II, which Scott himself described to Empire as "one of the best things" he's ever made in last month's issue, talk of a third film already has us coming over all Elysian Fields. But with only a couple of enthusiastic quotes to go off of for now, and Scott already busy working on his upcoming Bee Gees biopic, it could be some time yet (hopefully not 24 years, though) before we see Mescal's Lucius re-enter the colosseum. First, we need to see Mescal's Lucius just enter enter the colosseum (rhinos, ships, and all) — which we will be doing when Gladiator II hits cinemas on 22 November.