First look at Gladiator 2: Paul Mescal vs. Pedro Pascal

July 1, 2024

We get a first look at Ridley Scott’s gladiator 2, in which Paul Mescal faces Pedro Pascal, in the sequel to the 2000 film starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix.

Gladiators 2 will be released on November 15, 2024. It is directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, who also wrote Scott’s Napoleon.

The pictures are from Vanity Fair, which published an article and an interview about the film.

The story takes place years after Maximus, played by Russell Crowe, sacrificed his life to disrupt the corrupt and decadent leadership.

Paul Mescal plays Lucius, who was last seen in the original film as the young son of Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen.

Nielsen returns in the sequel, portraying historical figure Lucilla, the daughter of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

In gladiator 2, Decades have passed and Lucius has grown up far away from his mother. As a child, Lucilla sent him to Numidia on the north coast of Africa, then just outside the reach of Rome. Lucius never fully understood her decision and his resentment grew as he grew older, despite her good intentions.

Ridley Scott explains the beginning of the film, in which Lucius leads a peaceful life with his wife and child in a coastal town in Numidia, but their lives are thrown into disarray when conquerors from his homeland begin to invade.

“He has settled in a coastal town in Numidia,” explains Scott. “He is a blue-eyed, fair-skinned man with red hair who stands out among the locals. It is one of the last surviving civilisations when the Romans begin their conquest of North Africa.”

Pedro Pascal’s Marcus Acacius is a Roman general trained under Crowe’s character from the first film who leads the invasion (the character did not appear in the first film, but is used to provide a connection to Crowe’s Maximus).

“This film has an identity that is shaped by its legacy. It wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t,” Pascal says. He describes Acacius as a fighter who “learned from the best, so of course that code of honor is embedded in his training and his life. But at the end of the day, he’s a different person. And that can’t change who he is. Maximus is Maximus, and that can’t be replicated. That just makes Acacius capable of different things.”