Russell Crowe shares honest assessment of why Gladiator 2 failed to live up to original

Crowe starred in Ridley Scott’s original 2000 action film, alongside Joaquin Phoenix

Russell Crowe has issued a candid review of Gladiator II, doubling down on his previous remarks that the creative team behind the film missed the mark.

Crowe, 61, led Ridley Scott’s original Gladiator in 2000, alongside Joaquin Phoenix. His incomparable portrayal of the stoic and loyal Maximus, Rome’s powerful general leader during the 2nd century AD, earned him the 2001 Academy Award for Best Actor.

Months before the sequel’s November 2024 debut, the Kiwi actor admitted that he was “slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one.”

“Because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done,” he told Consequence’s Kyle Meredith. At the end of the first movie, his character dies after succumbing to wounds sustained in a final duel with his enemy, Commodus (Phoenix).

It’s been over a year since Gladiator II’s release, and Crowe is standing firm in his criticsm, telling Australia’s Triple J radio show: “I think the recent sequel that, you know, we don’t have to name out loud is a really unfortunate example of even the people in that engine room not actually understanding what made the first one special.”

Russell Crowe (left) said the Paul Mescal-led ‘Gladiator’ sequel was an 'unfortunate example' of how the film's creative team didn't understand 'what made the first one special' (Getty / Paramount Pictures)

Crowe won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Maximus in ‘Gladiator’ (Paramount Pictures)

He insisted that “it wasn’t the pomp. It wasn’t the circumstance. It wasn’t the action” that made the first film what it was. “It was the moral core,” he said.

“The thing is, there was a daily fight on that set. It was a daily fight to keep that moral core of the character,” Crowe added, recalling how producers wanted to include sex scenes to create romantic tension for Maximus.

“The amount of times they suggested sex scenes and stuff like that for Maximus, it’s like you’re taking away his power,” he said. “So you’re saying 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.”

Maximus’s devout loyalty to his murdered wife and child is what sets the plot of Gladiator in motion. Therefore, Crowe felt that an affair would have appeared disingenuous.

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Still, the producers eventually got their way in Gladiator II, as it’s revealed that Paul Mescal’s Lucius is the illegitimate son of Maximus and Commodus’s older sister, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen).

The sequel stars Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington and Nielsen, who reprises her role of Lucilla. It picks up years after the events of the first film, in which Lucius witnessed the horrific death of Maximus at the hands of his Uncle Commodus.

When his home is conquered by powerful Roman emperors, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum in an effort to try and restore Rome to what his father and grandfather had envisioned.

Upon its release, Gladiator II received mixed reviews from critics. In her four-star review of the film, The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey found the sequel to be “thrilling — even if Paul Mescal is no Russell Crowe.”