The grandeur and might of ancient Rome was on full display in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, a historical epic that starred Russell Crowe as ferocious gladiator Maximus. Returning to that world for Gladiator II, about Maximus’ son Lucius (Paul Mescal), not only meant reconstructing the city, but going even bigger. “It’s a total continuation,” explains production designer Arthur Max, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the first film, “It’s about 15 years later, after the death of Maximus, so essentially nothing would have changed in the Colosseum. We wanted it to be familiar for the people who loved Gladiator and identified with it. But we also wanted to boost the scale.”
To achieve that scale, Gladiator II returned to several of the countries where the first film shot and took advantage of new technologies that have been developed in the years since. The Colosseum was reconstructed in Fort Ricasoli in Kalkara, Malta, same as Gladiator, with sets also built in Morocco and England. “We like recycling,” he notes of the decision to reuse locations more than two decades later.
Morocco stood in for the Roman-held North African kingdom of Numidia—mostly present-day Algeria—as the army of General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) captures Lucuis after a great battle. The story then shifts from Numidia to Rome, where Macrinus (Denzel Washington) trains Lucius for the arena much to the delight of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and the horror of his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen). The Rome set was nearly five miles long, with a Colosseum replica that stood 46 feet high and was doubled digitally later. Despite the larger scale, Max and his team actually had less time to pull it off. “On the first one we had about 20 weeks of design work and prep, and 26 weeks of build,” he recalls. “And on Gladiator II we had barely 12 weeks of design and we had 20 weeks of build. So it was a running gun.”
Here, Max describes reimagining Rome, bringing the infamous shark battle to life and using every inch of Malta possible.
