Can Gladiator II save a genre — and a studio?

The trailer for Ridley Scott’s new epic, Gladiator II, is undeniably impressive, but then it rather had to be. Rumors that its already massive budget had ballooned to as much as $310 million — which would mean it would have to be one of 2024’s highest-grossing movies just to break even, never mind making a profit — may have suggested that the film was in trouble, but an early screening of the preview at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas reassured exhibitors and studios alike, with the few journalists who had seen the footage rushing to extol its scale and grandeur. Now it’s been released online, and viewers have a chance to judge for themselves. (Its cinematic debut will come with Deadpool vs Wolverine.) Does it look like a worthy follow-up to Gladiator?

To be frank, it would be nigh-on impossible to compete with the original, but that is because the success of the Oscar-winning behemoth is a more subtle and complex thing than it was given credit for. Its central revenge storyline was something out of Death Wish ­­— man trained in the violent arts has wife and child killed; man gives into violent impulses; everyone who gets in his way suffers — but it was elevated to artistic respectability by its peerless technical accomplishment, a script that neatly balanced profundity and quotability and performances by veteran British actors like Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi and Oliver Reed, who could give gravitas to General Hospital. And, of course, it boasted an award-winning performance at its center by Russell Crowe as a terrifying instrument of vengeance, who hacked, slashed and decapitated his way through the picture as he sought revenge on Joaquin Phoenix’s sniveling, incestuous-intended emperor Commodus.

Crowe will, of course, not be returning for the Gladiator sequel, on account of his character Maximus dying heroically at the conclusion of the first one, his job done. Yet judging by this preview, his influence will be keenly felt throughout, whether it’s Paul Mescal’s Lucius (apparently his son, although this has not yet been publicly revealed) gazing awestruck at the legendary general-turned-gladiator’s armor, or the massed ranks of fighters declaring “Strength and honor,” the original’s catchphrase, as they prepare to face their adversaries. And there are countless other callbacks to the first film, too, from Lucius’s double-sword decapitation technique to the reappearance of Connie Nielsen as Lucilla, Maximus’s former lover and Lucius’s mother.

It all looks vastly expensive, with sea battles and scenes of siege warfare that may feature CGI embellishment but also have thousands of extras and a reassuring amount of bloody peril right up on the screen. Mescal, who is a critical favorite after his roles in Normal People and All Of Us Strangers but has yet to make his blockbuster debut, may not quite be measuring up to Crowe for sheer force of charisma on this evidence, but the always-welcome presence of Denzel Washington as a mysterious powerbroker who seems intent on seizing power from the corrupt but effete emperors indicates that the sub-I, Claudius politicking that made the first film such a pleasure to watch will be returning here, with a vengeance.

There will be an awful lot riding on this picture’s success. The beleaguered Paramount Pictures desperately needs a hit, and for the film to make serious money, it needs to bank Oppenheimer-level amounts. And there is something of a question mark over the now-eighty-six-year-old Scott, too, who appears in recent years to have gone for broke in emphasizing the comic aspects of everything from Napoleon’s conquest of Europe to the murder of Maurizio Gucci by his wife Patrizia. Few would relish the prospect of Gladiator II being turned into the British sitcom Up, Pompeii. But judged on the evidence of this fiery, propulsive trailer — and I haven’t even mentioned Pedro Pascal as Mescal’s nemesis, offering two muscled gladiators for the price of one — then Crowe’s outraged bellow from the first film of “Are you not entertained?” will find an enthusiastic response in the affirmative from audiences worldwide in a few months’ time. Strength and honor, indeed.