The Gladiator is twenty years old, it started as a disaster but became a classic.

Last year, we dedicated several articles to commemorate the 1999 film crop, which many say is one of the strongest crops in film history.

But, in hindsight since 2020, we also have to provide justice for the next millennium, as the scroll through the screening list is clear: in 2000, there were many formative masterpieces and copyright films in the cinema (memory. Requiem for a Dream. Mixed love. Dancer in the dark), comedies that have become cult (It’s almost famous. lantern. Oh brother where are you going. Pop, girls and more), there were moving films and good feelings (Billy Elliot. chocolate), and there was no shortage of memorable box office hits that created fashion and set new directions in Hollywood.

This is when, for example, the X Men the first installment, which not only became a radical franchise to this day, but also played a key role in the fact that superheroes have now completely eliminated movie shows. The other milestone is the gladiator It was not a sequel yet, but it still left a tangible mark on the film scene of the 2000s. It was one thing that was a huge box office hit (the Mission impossible 2 next year’s Oscar gala, swapping five of his 11 nominations for awards, and even giving new impetus to a bit of stagnation as a director in the 1990s. Ridley Scott race. However, it has also released the Hollywood revival of sandal movies, the effects of which are still being felt. the gladiator Its world premiere was held just twenty years ago, on May 1, 2000, so it’s time to remember some interesting things about the movie.

The second coming of the sandals cinema

Greco-Roman myths and great and epic ancient stories were already extremely popular in the silent film era, but their golden age in Hollywood occurred in the early 1950s. These were the Marvel cinematic universe of the day: the Studios produced countless dramatic, and mostly very long, dramas, dubbed “sandal movies,” just as superhero movies hit the screen on-screen these days. Quo Vadis. Ben Hur. Julius Caesar. Spartacus. The legend of golden wool.to name just a few really classic ones.

The culmination and colossal fall of this megalomaniac period occurred in 1963. Cleopatra, which almost dragged one of the big Hollywood studios. the Elisabeth Taylor and Richard Burton The film’s crazy budget, protagonist, is a good indication that it was not only the most expensive job of its time, but it still ranks 26th on the list of the most expensive movies of all time, so nothing more could fit into the early sixties before 1995. the Cleopatra in vain did he produce his biggest 1963 income in theaters, still suffering such a loss that he nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. This also ended the golden age of sandal movies. The genre later had an outbreak or two, but it didn’t actually get strong. In the second half of the 1990s, it was no longer possible to watch such movies in theaters, and ancient mythology tended to retreat to the TV screen, with very low-quality series like Hercules or a Xena.

In this stagnation, the gladiator, which wasn’t cheap entertainment ($ 100 million) either, but turned out to be more profitable with revenue of $ 460 million. Big studios started spending bolder on epics of old movies, so the Troya Alexander the Greata Battle of the titansa Herculesa 300a Pompeiiaz Exodus or just the failed one Ben Hur-remake. Even the revolution in television quality has rocked the genre. It’s true, the successful HBO series, the RomeIt closed after two seasons in 2007 because it cost too much. However the Romeplayed an important role in preparing the ground for highly successful series such as Battle of the thrones or a Spartacus.

The sequel takes twenty years

It was quite unusual in Hollywood that the gladiator Although its success has inspired a complete Hollywood trend, it has not been a sequel in the last twenty years. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they haven’t tried all along, the main challenge was without a doubt that we are dealing with a very round story, at the end of which the protagonist dies. The roar of a prequel began as early as 2001, and several ideas have emerged since then for the second part, including one in which Maximus would return from death. Our personal favorite is the Australian-born rock and roll musician, writer, and shaman, Nick cave version, which is directly a compatriot, Russell Crowe asked to write the script.

Russell called and asked if I wanted to write Gladiator 2. It seemed like a big enough bite for someone who had written a script in his life until then. “Hey Russell, weren’t you dead at the end of the Gladiator?” “Yes, yes, you will discover something for that.”

The conversation was evoked by Cave, who obeyed the instructions and really released his imagination. His story began with the Roman gods resurrecting Maximus, who first comes to the defense of persecuted Christians, He then embarks on a journey through time and stumbles upon human history, fighting in World War II and in Vietnam. Finally, he ends up at the Pentagon today as a general. It could have been one of the wildest sequels of all time, but unfortunately studio bosses weren’t excited about it, so it was destroyed, the main direction still being to put Maximus’s nephew, Lucius, in the center, some decades later. gladiator after his act. It was also announced a couple of years ago that some twenty years after the first part, the Gladiator 2and this will be directed by Ridley Scott. Admittedly, it has not been revealed whether Russel Crowe will return in any form. The last time they confirmed the sequel last summer, it was also uploaded to Imdb, but since then there has been a lot of silence around the project.

The Legend of Thumb Down

Although Ridley Scott has directed several historical films, it is not the script that has convinced him to take on the role of a 19th century painting. gladiator Redevelopment. The producers showed it to him. Jean-Léon Gérôme 1872, Pollice Verso (thumb down) in which a gladiator stretches out on his victim lying on the ground while a forest of thumbs from the auditorium stares at him. the Foreign and a Horny Bounty Hunter Its director was said to be so impressed by the dramatic power of the painting that he said yes to the project and only then did he read the script, which he had quite a bit of trouble with during filming.

The work of the star painter Gérôme was at least as great on the 19th century paint market as gladiator in the millennium film industry, the Pollice VersoIt has been copied by the masses around the world. It was so fashionable that this image took responsibility for spreading a stubborn historical misconception that the inch down would have meant death and the inch up would have meant life in Roman gladiator games. However, almost the opposite is true: the thumb down only begged for grace, while the thumb pointed inward or towards the chest urged the gladiator to finish off his opponent.

The filmmakers apparently knew that too, but they were based on the misconception Comfortable to the emperor’s hand signals. Of course, this is not the greatest historical inaccuracy in the gladiatorIn, the story deals with the known facts quite generously. But it’s not even a last-minute textbook, it’s a Hollywood adventure movie.

The lines were written on the fly

So Ridley Scott was captivated by the possibilities inherent in the theme, but was very dissatisfied with the script and sterile dialogue from the get-go. As a result, they cut the shoot with just 21 pages of the script, instead of the 100-120 average for feature films, so they had to improvise on the fly.

Later, Russell Crowe said in an interview that they had found out what to shoot day by day, there were also times when they gave a day off to all the staff because they did not know what to do the next day. It was then when they met in the actor’s apartment and feverishly intertwined the conversations that had just taken place between the suggestions of the various writers. Laughing, Crowe recalled that it was “the dumbest way to make a movie,” and it often happened that, in addition to an evening drink, they relaxed themselves to avoid disaster. Scott expressed it this way once, though not shown in the movie, but the shooting was like climbing sixteen mountain peaks in a row.

It was also said that Crowe wanted to improvise in front of the camera because he hated, for example, the Maximus line that had become a cult: “This will be my revenge. In this life or in the next. He tried to find something better, but later From several failed attempts, Scott asked him to go back to the original anyway, which everyone really liked, except for Crowe, who even later ideologized success this way:

It was a lot of shit. But I’m the best actor in the world, so even the shit lines in my song sound good.

Despite the vomiting session, not only did they manage to finish the movie, but they even received an Oscar for Best Picture and are still played on television to this day. The dialogues not only took place on the fly, but also discovered halfway through the shoot that Maximus would eventually die. He had originally survived the battle with the Comfortable Emperor, but the Scots realized that the protagonist’s only goal was to avenge the execution of his family and then repent of them, so there would be little point in keeping him alive. Crowe joked that after settling down with the emperor, he could open a pizzeria next to the Colosseum. This would certainly have made it easier to continue, but fortunately they finally opted for glorious death.

Russell Crowe’s Great March

The role of Maximus originally Mel Gibson offered who The BravesNel has already shown that he can be quite convincing in his role as a vengeful freedom fighter. However, the actor rejected the offer because he felt 42 years for Maximus. However, he was not left without another historical drama and great battles, only the gladiator instead of The patriot assumed the lead role.

This is how his eight-year-old Australian colleague Russell Crowe, who was the thriller about the biggest tobacco scandal at the time, came on the scene. Insider informationt turned With michael mann and With Al Pacino. At first, he was supposedly not interested in the project, but Mann convinced him to take it a little more seriously. Crowe remembers nodding fairly quickly to the role after being told it’s a $ 100 million movie that a Roman general can play in and the director will be Ridley Scott.

Regardless, this became the highlight of Crowe’s career: the studios rushed after him and were nominated for an Oscar for best male lead for three consecutive years (Insider information. gladiator. An amazing mind), who managed to turn into a prize like Maximus. Scott and Crowe have become regular co-creators, having made five movies together so far. Crowe had not used a specialist for decades to film action scenes, so he suffered several injuries on set: gladiator for example, he suffered a fractured tibia, a bruised hip, an injured Achilles tendon, various facial injuries, and an index finger that became numb for years.

Joquin Phoenix wanted to hit himself

A hero is worth as much as his opponent, they say, and this dramaturgical premise holds true. gladiatorra, who required at least as much Commodus to swing in evil as Maximus, the steadfast hero.

Joaquin Phoenix his career began as a child actor, but his brother, picked up by Hollywood, Phoenix river He withdrew from the public for years after his tragic death. He started taking on roles again in the mid-1990s, and more and more people noticed his sensitive ways, but the breakthrough was gladiator brought it to him where he formed it with an elan Marco Aurelio her son, Commodus, cheating out of love hunger, which almost also obscured Russell Crowe.

Scott praises his eyes that Phoenix was his first choice for the role. The 25-year-old actor was said to be very nervous during filming, but his maximum commitment and peculiar way of working was already evident. Before their big scene together, he asked Russell Crowe to hit him so he could get in the mood. Crowe plays Marco Aurelio Sir Richard Harris He turned to advice, which also proved wise enough in life, as it suggested that the young colleague be drunk rather than beaten. According to the anecdote, several hours and a few good Guinness jugs later, Phoenix also calmed down so they could continue working. The lofty Commodus already houses Phoenix’s later broken characters, the junkies Johnny Cash all the way to the sociopath Joker. This role also gave Phoenix its first Oscar nomination, followed by three more in the past twenty years. Finally, this year he received the award a wildcardreached.

Spartacus nodded

According to Imdb’s curiosities, a film legend died in February of this year at the age of 103, Kirk Douglas We also saw during the presentation of the gladiatort. This is an interesting fact because, among many other classics, it has set the benchmark for gladiator movies. Spartacus the role of the title Stanley Kubrick In his 1960 epic movie. In 2000, even an 84-year-old actor allegedly liked the Ridley Scott movie, though he added that he couldn’t get close to Spartacus nobility.

Featured Image: Jaap Buitendijk / Universal / AFP