Ridley Scott is 83 years old, but he’s busier than those a third his age. He has two movies being released in the next three months. His next film is Kitbag, a Napoleon movie starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jodie Comer. Oh, and that Gladiator sequel he’s been talking about for ages? That’s still on the docket, too. And he wants everyone to know that’s coming sooner rather than later (but not that soon).
In a new interview with Empire (as caught by The Hollywood Reporter), the Oscar-nominated filmmaker laid out his packed line-up. “I’m already having [the next] Gladiator written now,” Scott said. “So when I’ve done Napoleon, Gladiator will be ready to go.”
Considering its hero, Russell Crowe’s Maximus, didn’t make it to the end of the first Gladiator, what could the sequel be about? According to THR, it’s “slated to follow Lucius, the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla and nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s power-hungry and amoral Commodus. Both Lucilla and Lucius were saved by Crowe’s Maximus from the embittered Roman emperor before the gladiator passed on to be with his own slain family.”
In the first film, which won a heap of Oscars, including Best Picture, Lucius was played by Spencer Treat Clark. It’s not clear if he’ll return, though he did reprise another childhood role, the son of Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, for its threequel, Glass.
Incidentally, since Gladiator, Scott has directed a whopping 13 more feature-length films, not counting the forthcoming power duo of The Last Duel and House of Gucci, which are due October 15 and November 24, respectively. And he wants to make another Alien prequel! And a spy movie called Queen & Country! And he’s in his mid-80s! And you thought 91-year-old Clint Eastwood was a prolific auteur.