30 Facts You Didn't Know About Gladiator

do not be trouble [Music] oh you are an elysium and you're already dead hey what's up everyone it's ryan here from the y and today we're gonna be taking a look at the roman epic gladiator to me it's a film that never gets old no matter how many times you've seen it and also one of the best in terms of portraying the culture of ancient rome on that note let's get right into the video here's 30 facts you didn't know about gladiator oliver reed who played proximo actually died midway through the production of gladiator forcing scott to recreate the rest of his scenes with cgi his death occurred one night at a local pub in malta where reid a notorious alcoholic challenged a group of sailors to a drinking match it's been said he drank eight pints of german lager a dozen shots of rum half a bottle of whiskey and a few shots of hennessy his tab came out to somewhere around 600 but he unfortunately was never able to pay it as he suddenly collapsed after drinking that ungodly amount of alcohol the origin story of gladiator all started with the painting that painting was police verso by jean leon jerome and depicts a gladiator standing over a downed opponent waiting on whether or not to spare his life it's a beautiful work of art and i can easily see how it only took one look for ridley scott to immediately sign onto the project the original script called for maximus to fight proximo at the end of the film this was intended to be a penultimate blow from commodus by forcing maximus to kill his close friend but oliver reed's untimely death forced the rewrite of the script in my mind this is without a doubt one of the most iconic lines of the film [Music] it seemingly comes out of nowhere and encompasses the personality of commodus to perfection and what makes this even better is the fact that joaquin phoenix came up with the line totally on the spot the script only called for him to say it once in a conversational type tone but that apparently didn't do it for phoenix so he said it once again this time with a lot more emotion the great italian opera singer luciano pavarotti was offered a chance to sing a song for the soundtrack but turn down the opportunity he later regretted saying no and even released his own version of the main theme song i'll put a link to it in the description one of the biggest regrets the producers have about the film was that they couldn't get a rhinoceros on the screen supposedly scott really wanted a rhino in the arena but after talking to animal trainers it became apparent they were just too difficult to control and because cgi was a newer technology back then a cgi rhino was out of their price range so ridley scott never got the rhino he wanted but maybe it'll make an appearance in gladiator ii [Music] maximus's pet wolf was actually a belgian tervaren shepard they were forced to use it because of england's strict anti-rabies laws that prevented them from importing a real wolf into the country additionally the original script called for his pet to be killed in a tent but scott decided it would have been too depressing for the audience to watch by many accounts gladiator was the first big time movie that joaquin phoenix was a part of so it makes a lot of sense that he got extremely nervous before filming many of the scenes what doesn't make a ton of sense is that he would ask russell crowe to physically abuse him to get rid of any nerves of course this didn't sit too well with crow so he consulted richard harris for advice on what to do harris's response let's get him pissed so that's what they did and after several pints of guinness joaquin phoenix finally loosened up a bit you would fight me why not do you think i'm afraid russell crowe has stated that gladiator is his favorite movie he's ever done and maximus his favorite character he's ever played are you not entertained are you not entertained the blur effect that happens midway through the opening battle sequence may just seemed like a cool bit of filmmaking but it was actually the result of a mistake after about 20 days of filming on location the crew was wrapping up on the final day when they encountered a problem the director of photography had underestimated the remaining daylight they had and with more scenes still to film a decision had to be made so to keep the continuity in regard to lighting and to avoid spending another day on location they shot the rest of the scenes with a very low frame rate then in post-production they duplicated the film and stretched it back out creating the motion blur that we see in the movie today my name is maximus desmus meridius sadly maximus decimus meridius was not a real person meaning he didn't really kill commodus in real life that honor goes to the wrestler narcissus who strangled commodus to death after a failed attempt at poisoning him the wounds on russell crowe's face after the opening battle sequence weren't prosthetics or makeup for the movie they were actually real it was caused by his horse backing up into some tree branches which cut his face up and required stitches which can clearly be seen here [Music] to fill out the coliseum they used 2 000 extras while another 33 000 were created with cgi they also made a replica of the coliseum that stood over 50 feet tall and cost an estimated 1 million dollars to build to put it lightly russell crowe and oliver reed never took a liking to each other like their on-screen chemistry would suggest speaking on the late actor crow said i never got on with ali he's visited me in dreams and asked me to talk kindly of him so i should but we never had a pleasant conversation are you in danger of becoming a good man several times in the movie commodus signaled whether a person lived or died with a thumbs up or a thumbs down and while it's historically accurate that emperors used their thumbs to decide a person's fate the movie only partially got it right back in ancient times a thumbs down actually meant swords down meaning the person's life was to be spared but ridley scott thought this whole thing would be too confusing for audiences because of our modern idea of thumbs up being good so that was one mistake he lets slide [Music] anyone who's seen gladiator most likely had the thought of whether maximus and lucilla were going to get together it seemed plausible as both were widowers shared a common enemy and even had a previous romantic relationship i think a lot of directors would have taken the easy bait and put in a romance between the two but not ridley scott he rejected any notion that maximus and lucilla should have a sexual relationship because it would have taken away the focus from his murdered wife and son one thing that may sound unbelievable what is actually true is that gladiators used to do product endorsements before they fought in the coliseum ridley scott considered the idea of having maximus advertised olive oil before his fights but didn't go through with it because he thought audiences would never believe it was historically accurate for his performance as king joffrey in game of thrones jack gleason said joaquin phoenix's portrayal of commodus had the biggest impact on shaping his own character they tell me your son squealed like a girl when they nailed him to the cross i think most people would agree that russell crowe is a great actor but sometimes even great actors don't always know what sounds good this was the case in gladiator when crow apparently thought maximus should have a spanish accent similar to antonio banderas thankfully that idea was immediately shot down by ridley scott after hearing his accent for the first time no good fabulous no good a second almost huge blunder came in the form of russell crowe hating this iconic line and i will have my venues in this life for the next he disliked it so much he tried coming up with various alternatives but nobody liked his takes and he was eventually persuaded to just stick with the script to top it all off russell crowe told scott it was but i'm the greatest actor in the world and i can make even sound good russell crowe almost said no to the part of maximus because he was 40 pounds overweight and had a shaved head because of his previous role in the insider he changed his mind after hearing ridley scott was the director but surprisingly didn't go on some crazy workout plan to lose the weight instead he just did a lot more work around his farm also maximus's habit of rubbing the soil before his fights was a show of remembrance to his former life as a farmer [Music] although it looks to be unintentional ridley scott's gladiator shares many of the same plot points as the film the fall of the roman empire the movie's main character is a man named livius who like maximus is intended to be the successor to marcus aurelius he's in love with lucilla while in gladiator maximus had a prior relationship with her in both films marcus aurelius is assassinated and commodus assumes control of the throne and in both movies commodus unsuccessfully tries to recruit both livius and maximus the only difference being that after livius rejects his offer he still continues to employ him the finale of the fall of the roman empire and gladiator look largely the same with both men killing commodus in single combat albeit for different reasons livius to save lucilla and maximus to avenge his fallen wife and son although they did share the common goal of killing commodus for the greater good of rome [Music] in the movie industry it's common for scripps to undergo changes right before filming but what gladiator did which was starting production with only 32 pages of the script completed and basically writing the whole thing while filming is almost unheard of because of this the plot of gladiator had integral parts changed that gave a whole different meaning to the film the biggest of these changes was to the family of maximus in the original script his family was actually never killed and they even came to the arena to watch him fight as a gladiator which sounds crazy because that event was literally the driving force behind the movie and the reason why his revenge was so sweet in the end the acronym spqr tattooed on the arm of maximus stands for senetus papuluske romanos the official emblem of the roman government back in those days the symbol was inscribed on many items from currency to monuments and even on the uniforms of roman soldiers and officers but you most likely wouldn't have seen spqr tattooed on a roman legionary as they bore a different mark of unknown origin the real-life commodus wasn't all too different from ridley scott's vision of the gladiator emperor there's no indication he actually wanted to be with his sister but his other terrible acts certainly make up for this one lie known by many accounts to be a megalomaniac he often compared himself to hercules and like the film showed he had a certain fascination with gladiatorial combat he didn't kill many of his opponents as they would submit to him and were spared but in private commodus would offer no mercy and slay his sparring partners for fun he would order wounded soldiers and citizens who lost their feet to be tied up so he could club them to death if that wasn't enough commodus loved to kill all kinds of exotic animals such as lions giraffes hippos you name it and he probably killed it at one point in time every morning he'd wake up and massacre hundreds of animals before lunch came around and all for no apparent reason these outrageous acts disgusted the roman people and is largely seen as the reason behind why he was finally assassinated [Music] when maximus describes his home to marcus aurelius kitchen garden smells of herbs in the day jasmine in the evening russell crowe was actually calling upon a recollection of his own farm in australia one of the memorable parts of the opening battle sequence was the partially burned down forest that served as the backdrop for me it added to the overall grittiness of the scene and definitely made the battle more epic but when they first arrived on set at what is known as bornwood in surrey england it looked nothing like it does in the film that's because before they started filming they had to burn down the forest themselves and no it's not because ridley scott is some sort of pyromaniac the entire area had been marked for deforestation so he was simply saving the government money and getting what he wanted at the same time for the most part i'd say that gladiator is pretty historically accurate but with any historical film especially one from a period so far back as the roman empire there are going to be inaccuracies one of the biggest mistakes well i don't know if you can even call it a mistake as it was done for the sake of entertainment value is the use of catapults and ballistas in the opening battle sequence in real life you would have never seen those machines in a forest or an open battle it just wasn't practical so they were strictly used for sieging cities this was obviously one historical inconsistency they just didn't care about because let's be honest who doesn't love catapults launching exploding firebombs as i stated before maximus was not a real historical figure but if there was one person he could be compared to in terms of career and personality it would have to be claudius pompeinus pompeinus was the chief general of the roman armies and one of the emperor's closest advisors he also married lucella and it's believed that marcus aurelius wanted pompeinus to succeed him as caesar and just like maximus he didn't want the job if i had to pick one character in the film who was portrayed most faithfully in terms of historical accuracy it would have to be marcus aurelius he was known as the last of the five good emperors and even authored the famous book meditations considered to be one of the greatest books on philosophy ever written his reign was noted by a smallpox pandemic which wiped out a tenth of the population and even killed the emperor himself perhaps the biggest mistake marcus aurelius made in his lifetime was appointing commodus as the heir to the throne whether he knew the extent of his son's depravity is lost in time but there also remains the fact that if he was to appoint anyone else emperor it would have most certainly caused a civil war that may have been even more disastrous than just letting his evil son take the throne finally gladiator 2 is now fully confirmed and a release date seems to be likely in 2023 or 2024 plot details are obviously scarce but we do know a couple things the film is set to take place 20 years after the events of the first movie and will follow the son of lucilla lucius varus there were some earlier rumors about the sequel being of the supernatural type with maximus languishing in purgatory before being resurrected by the roman gods to become some kind of immortal superhero but thank jesus that script never saw the light of day let's just hope the real gladiator sequel is done in a way that doesn't tarnish the reputation of the first one because i feel like unfortunately a lot of sequels nowadays don't live up to the hype thank you all so much for watching i hope you enjoyed it if you did give me a like and i got a couple of other videos in the works that i'm pretty excited about so don't forget to subscribe alright till next time have a good one

Channel: The Why

Views: 1,081,196

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Id: kIkyjPuDLE0

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022