Ridley Scott would have blamed Paul Mescal for the failure of Gladiator II
The director believes that his star actor was not “masculine” enough and would have removed him from The Dog Stars at the last moment.
Between Ridley Scott and Paul Mescal, have relations become complicated?
According to Matt Belloni of Puck, the director of Gladiator II would have kept a bitter taste of his collaboration with the actor, to the point of replacing him at the last moment in the casting of The Dog Stars.
Mescal was initially supposed to play the lead role in this post-apocalyptic film. He was eventually replaced by Jacob Elordi, ostensibly for scheduling reasons related to the Sam Mendes-directed Beatles films (in which Mescal would play Paul McCartney). An explanation which would however be contested by several sources close to production. According to these same sources, Scott would have been unhappy with Mescal’s work on Gladiator II and would have notably estimated that the actor was “not masculine enough” to embody his hero The Dog Stars.
A decision which could ultimately have served Mescal better.
Because The Dog Stars has just had a particularly disappointing start, with only $7.7 million in revenue at the US box office for its first weekend, for a budget of around $80 million…
A new flop for Ridley Scott after that of Gladiator IIwhich did not really impress opinion and brought in “only” 462 million dollars worldwide for a budget estimated at at least 250 million, or even more than 300 million according to some sources. A result far from the triumph hoped for for the sequel to the 2000 Oscar-winning classic.
