What We Do In Life Echoes In Eternity: Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR At 20

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator has held-up well over the last 20 years.  Russell Crowe delivered a muscular career-making performance in the 2000 historical epic, while Joaquin Phoenix gives a wonderfully squirmy performance as the villain of the piece. 

Hans Zimmer’s score is decent, but now a lot of themes sound too much like his work on Pirates of The Caribbean for comfort. It was good (even great) at the time, but now the shadow of Jack Sparrow looms large. John Mathieson’s cinematgopraphy has a lot of interesting textures which help show Russell Crowes’ journey from Germania to Rome to the afterlife. Good stuff.

Budgeted at $100 million, Gladiator grossed more than $460 million globally, picking up 12 Oscar nominations and winning seven including Best Picture and Best Actor. 

I’ve always been fascinated by Nick Cave’s screenplay for potential sequel that was set to take place in the afterlife. It would have been a ballsy move and a hell of a direction to take a sequel. A shame that it never made it to screens.