Gladiator
2000 · 155 min
Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson. Starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed.
After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.
Critics 80% · audiences 87% · streaming on Netflix, Paramount+, Kanopy · 12 Oscar nominations, 5 won
What they said about Gladiator
- 2000
essential physical and psychological reality to the role
— Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times - 2000
his burly frame and expressive face to give dimension to what might otherwise have been comic book heroics.
— Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times - 2000
doesn't use tricks in this role to court our approval. He earns it the old-fashioned way, by daring to be quiet, if not silent, and intensely, implacably strong.
— The Wall Street - 2000
employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are.
— Roger Ebert
How it got made
David Franzoni, who wrote the first draft of the Gladiator screenplay, traveled across Eastern Europe and the Middle East by motorcycle in 1972. "Everywhere I went in Europe, there were arenas", Franzoni recalled. "Even as I went east, going through Turkey, I began to think to myself this must have been a hell of a franchise." During a stop in Baghdad, Iraq, he started reading the 1958 Daniel P. Mannix novel Those About to Die, which gave him the idea for Gladiator.
Twenty-five years later, Franzoni wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's Amistad, which was Spielberg's first film for DreamWorks Pictures. Though Amistad was only a moderate commercial success, DreamWorks was impressed with Franzoni's screenplay and gave him a three-picture deal as writer and co-producer. Remembering his 1972 trip, Franzoni pitched his gladiator story idea to Spielberg, who immediately told him to write the script. After reading the ancient Roman text Historia Augusta, Franzoni chose to center the story on Commodus. The protagonist was Narcissus, a wrestler who, according to the ancient historians Herodian and Cassius Dio, strangled Commodus to death.
DreamWorks producers Walter F. Parkes and Douglas Wick felt that Ridley Scott would be the ideal director to bring Franzoni's story to life. They showed him a copy of Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1872 painting Pollice Verso, which Scott said portrays the Roman Empire "in all its glory and wickedness". He was so captivated by the image that he immediately agreed to direct the film. When Parkes pointed out that Scott did not know anything about the story, Scott replied, "I don’t care, I’ll do it".
At the box office
Gladiator had its world premiere in Los Angeles, California, on May 1, 2000. It was released in the United States and Canada on May 5, 2000. It earned during its opening weekend, making it the third-highest for an R-rated film, after Air Force One () and Interview with the Vampire (), and the number one film of the weekend. The film remained number one in its second weekend, collecting and beating out newcomer Battlefield Earth (). During its third weekend, Gladiator fell to second place with , behind Dinosaur (). The film spent a total of ten weeks in the top ten at the box office, and was in theaters for over a year, finishing its theatrical run on May 10, 2001. Its total gross in the United States and Canada was .
In the United Kingdom, Gladiator opened on May 12, 2000, and grossed £3.5 million in its opening weekend. It spent seven weeks at number one, and its total gross surpassed . The film was also number one for seven weeks in Italy, and for five weeks in France. Outside of the United States and Canada, Gladiator grossed , for a total worldwide gross of against a budget of . It was the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2000, behind Mission: Impossible 2 ().