Actor and director Russell Crowe has once again criticized the film "Gladiator II," claiming that the sequel has lost the "moral core" that adorned the original.
The Australian actor won an Oscar for the 2000 film “Gladiator,” in which he played Maximus, a Roman soldier who is betrayed by an evil emperor, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Maximus then sets out on a path of revenge by becoming a gladiator.
Ridley Scott continued the story more than two decades later with the 2024 film “Gladiator II,” in which Paul Mescal played a character on a similar life path, who is eventually revealed to be Maximus’ son.
Crowe did not appear in the sequel because his character dies in the first film, but he has previously criticized the sequel, and he reiterated his objections during a recent appearance at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy.
"While we were shooting the first film, there was a lot of pressure to accommodate the studio's and one of the producers' wishes for sex scenes between Maximus and the female characters," the actor and director explained.
"I've always been against it. This is a story about a man avenging the death of his wife and child. There can't be a moment on that journey where he stops and has sex with someone. That doesn't make any sense, because it would ruin his whole journey," he believes.
Crowe stressed that he stood by his position.
"Ridley probably would have liked a sex scene between me and the lead actress, Connie Nielsen, but in the end he agreed with me that it was the moral core of the film," Crowe added.
It is later revealed that the character of Paul Mescal is the son of Maximus, meaning that Maximus and Lucilla, played by Nielsen, had an intimate relationship before the events of the first film. According to Crowe, this deviates from what the original film was trying to achieve.
"For them to destroy that moral center in the second film - it's very interesting," he noted.
"The second film barely matched the box office earnings of the first, and it's been over 20 years," the actor and director continues.
"Gladiator II" earned around $462 million, while the first film earned around $466 million, not accounting for inflation.
"When you consider how much the value of the dollar has changed, they failed. They failed because they didn't understand why the first film was successful, it was successful because it had a moral core," he concluded.
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