Gladiator II arrives in theaters on November 22 and we finally have a first look at Sir Ridley Scott's long-awaited sequel to his Oscar-winning 2000 classic.
According to Vanity Fair, Paul Mescal's Lucius, the son of Connie Nielsen's Lucilla, is the movie's lead character. Decades have passed and he's come of age far away from his mother after she sent him to the northern coast of Africa to escape the reaches of the Roman Empire.
He's grown up resenting his mother (not understanding she had good reason for sending him away) but now has a peaceful life with a wife and child of his own...until the Romans invade.
"He’s taken root in a seacoast town in Numidia," Scott explains. "He’s a blue-eyed, fair-skinned man with red hair, and he couldn’t be more different from the inhabitants. It’s one of the last surviving civilizations, as the Romans begin to descend in North Africa and take it all over."
Leading the charge is Pedro Pascal's Marcus Acacius, a previously unseen Roman general who trained under Russell Crowe's Maximus. The actor described him as a fighter who "learned from the best, so of course this code of honor is ingrained into his training and into his existence. But at the end of the day, he’s a different person. And that can’t change who he is."
"Maximus is Maximus, and that can’t be replicated. That just makes Acacius capable of different things," Pascal adds. "He’s a very, very good general, which can mean a very good killer."
Lucius detests what Acacius stands for but finds himself a prisoner of war in Rome. It's then Gladiator II's big twist comes.
"The wrinkle is, when he gets to Rome as a prisoner and has a first round in the arena, he sees his mother - to his shock," Scott teased. "He doesn’t know whether she’s alive or not. How would he know? You don’t have telephones. There’s no press. And there’s his mother in the royal box looking pretty good after 20 years. And she’s with the general who he came face-to-face with on the wall in Numidia..."
Several new stills have been shared from Gladiator II and, while we can't share them here, you can check them out by following the link in the X posts below to visit Vanity Fair.