The real reason it took 25 years to make ‘Gladiator 2’ weighs 6,000 pounds, has a giant horn, and isn’t called Paul Mescal

Good things take time, but 25 years for a sequel? Ridley Scott has revealed why Gladiator 2 took more than two decades to make — and it’s equal parts silly and amusing.

Writing a sequel to a cinematic masterpiece like Gladiator — especially after your original hero gets killed off — seems like a pretty solid excuse to wait 25 years. But Scott wasn’t sweating there too much. The director recently revealed that the toughest challenge in making Gladiator 2 wasn’t finding a replacement for Maximus, but getting a 6,000-pound non-human warrior on his set which he couldn’t do for the first film despite all efforts.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Scott spilled the tea about everything that went on behind the cameras of Gladiator 2. And while we were surprised to find out that Timothée Chalamet could have been Lucius in place of Paul Mescal, we’re more amused by how Scott’s demand to get a literal beast on his set stopped him from making Gladiator 2 any sooner. If you couldn’t guess who the beast is despite all the hints yet — it’s a rhinoceros.

The director revealed that while shooting the first Gladiator film in 1999, he talked to animal trainers about bringing a 6,000-pound rhino onto his set. However, his ambitions were watered down when he was told that horned animals were too difficult to control. Undeterred, Scott then took the technical route and tried to get a CGI rhino rendered for the movie. But this time, the budget constraints stopped him from getting the rhinoceros into the Colosseum.

And so, producer Doug Wick revealed in a 2020 interview that it became a running joke among Scott and his crew that “If we ever do a sequel, Ridley gets his rhino.” So Gladiator 2 wasn’t becoming a reality unless Scott figured out how to get this giant animal on the set. Fast forward to the sequel’s release, and guess what? Ridley finally got his wish. And, true to form, he couldn’t resist bragging that the “rhino was real right down to his legs.”

In another interview with Empire, Scott revealed how the animal was brought to life to square off against Lucius in the Colosseum. “Computerisation and AI — you have to embrace it,” he said. So by “real,” he meant that he had “a computer read every molecule and wrinkle on a rhino and then cut it on a thick piece of plastic, absolutely as a rhino’s body, which is then tailored to a skeleton shape.” And there you go, we have a rhino who can run “40 miles an hour, spin on the spot, wag its head, and snarl,” all on command.

That being said, getting the perfect script for Gladiator 2 wasn’t a simple walk in the Colosseum for Scott either. A prequel, a fantasy where Maximus returns as an immortal warrior, and many more scripts ended up in the trash before the team finally settled on a tale of vengeance led by Maximus’ son Lucius. But did the sequel come any close to the original? You’re free to give the verdict.