Gladiator 2 is on the cover of Première: “It’s a totally brutal film!”

Director Ridley Scott, star Paul Mescal and screenwriter David Scarpa tease the epic of the century in the new issue of Première.

Gladiator II comes out on November 13 in France. Twenty-four years later Gladiator first of the name: a generation separates the two films. After Russell CroweIt is Paul Mescal who becomes the hero of the arena for Ridley Scott. An event that deserved the cover of the new issue of First. In which Ridley explained to us why he wanted to follow up his triumphant neo-peplum: “Four years ago, people started talking to me about a sequel. I was reluctant… I thought it could really be terrible”explains the director, who extols the virtues of streaming to preserve his old films, including Gladiator is obviously part of it. “I just said: “OK, write me a script.” I wanted someone to give me the blueprint of the film – the plan that lays out its foundations.”

After a first blueprint signed Peter Craig (Hunger Games 3 and 4), it is the screenwriter David Scarpa (All the money in the world, Napoleon) who signs the script of this Gladiator II : “The first film was very mythological. Now it’s… less sentimental,” Scarpa tells us. “I think it mostly comes from Ridley, the way his sensibility has evolved over twenty years. He tends to eliminate anything romantic. He didn’t want misplaced sentimentality. He always had that in him: a dark side.”

It is therefore Paul Mescal who must return to the arena, in the shoes of Lucius, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), grandson of Marcus Aurelius, who became a slave then a gladiator under the orders of Macrinus (Denzel Washington, who finds Ridley twenty years later American Gangster). How the adorable Paul Mescal, after his romantic and sweet roles (Normal People, Aftersun, Without ever knowing us) he compares Gladiator II to the first? “The first film is romantic, full of nobility… Ours is totally brutal! It’s an absolutely anti-romantic film. Wild.”

The rest in issue 556 of Firstcurrently on newsstands and in our online store. And yes, we also talk about a possible Gladiator 3.