Russell Crowe slams Gladiator II for forgetting ‘moral core’ of his character

Russell Crowe has criticised the makers of Gladiator II, claiming that they failed to understand “what made the first one special”.

The Oscar-winning actor, who played Maximus in Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic, has suggested that Scott and his team forgot what audiences liked about the original when they made last year’s sequel.

“The recent sequel that 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 that first one special,” Crowe said during an interview with Australian radio station Triple J. “It wasn’t the pomp. It wasn’t the circumstance. It wasn’t the action. It was the moral core.”

He claimed that he had to fight for his character’s moral core and remind the filmmakers that Maximus was avenging his murdered wife and son in the first film.

“And the thing is, there was a daily fight on that set. It was a daily fight to keep that moral core of the character,” he continued. “The amount of times that they suggested sex scenes and stuff like that for Maximus – it’s like, you’re taking away his power.”

Crowe, who was not involved with the 2024 sequel, then implied that the follow-up diminished Maximus’s moral core and power by revealing that Paul Mescal’s character Lucius was Maximus’s illegitimate son with Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen.

“So, you’re saying, at the same time he had this relationship with his wife, he was f**king this other girl? What are you talking about? It’s crazy,” he stated.

The Beautiful Mind star noted that unhappy fans came up to him in Europe to register their disappointment with the sequel, and he replied, “It’s like, ‘Hey, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it.'”

Gladiator II, starring Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal, received generally positive reviews from critics and was a global box office hit, however, it failed to be a major awards contender like its predecessor.