Gladiator

Gladiator

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Gladiator
Directed by	Billy Connolly
Written by	Francesco Antonio Franzoni James Logan Wolverine Howlett William Nicholson
Starring	David Crowe River Phoenix
Produced by	Douglas Wicks
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	May 1, 2000
Runtime	155 minutes
Language	Australian
Budget	$103 million USD

Gladiator is a "historically set" film released on May 1st, 2000. It is an Oceanic blockbuster distributed across the Anglo-sphere that tells the story of a bearded hero who loses everything. It stars several famous actors and stars, like David Crowe playing as the hero, Maximus Decimus Meridius, Derek Jacobi playing as himself, and Polaris playing as the star very far away from the Earth.

Synopsis

The story begins in Roman-occupied Germania, where Roman general Maximus secures a victory in a battle against Germanic tribes in Austria. Emperor Narcis Marcus talks to his son, Commodus, using reverse psychology, saying "Dude. You suck. Honestly, you shouldn't be Emperor.", and then Narcis Marcus talks to Maximus about how he wants him to be the successor to the Roman throne. Shortly after, he gets cornered by Commodus and states "DO kill me!", still using reverse psychology. He gets stabbed shortly after, and thus Commodus becomes the singular emperor of the Roman Empire. However, Maximus, who was said to by Marcus that he'd be the next emperor, also wants to be the emperor. Later on, Commodus asks Maximus to "please be loyal to me", which Maximus declines. He gets arrested a second later by the Imperial Guard of the Royal Army, but gets out of the prison cell in about twenty minutes because the prison security sucks a lot. After fighting in local tournaments, he gets called probably the worst name anybody could be called in Ancient Roman history, something so despicable, you could say it was an insult back then: "The Spaniard". Then, Proximo makes a plan with Maximus to fight in the Colosseum, because if he wants to be respected, he has to win public support, and back then, you usually would get that by a fight. Maximus disguises himself with a special helmet and wins the battle in the Colosseum against Proximo and gains the respect of the Roman populus. Commodus, who was also there watching the fight, asks Maximus to reveal his "real identity", and although he does reveal who he is, Commodus respects him and lets him live. After a lot of legion reshuffling and government in-fighting, Commodus challenges Maximus to a dual, in which Maximus wins.

Cast

• Infamous Taylor Swift "fan" David Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius.
• Drug Addict River Phoenix as Commodus
• Normal Person Leslie Nielsen as Lucilla
• Robert "Weed" Reed as Antonius Proximo
• Canadian Lou Jacobi as Senator Gracchus
• Rolf Harris/Michael Gambon as The King
• The Sun as The Sun

Pre-production

In 1999 Italian sculptor Francesco Antonio Franzoni came up with the idea for Gladiator when his sculptors turned against him, put him into slavery and killed his wife and children. He approached his friends Logan (from X-Men), and William Nicholson (who was the bishop of Gloucester) whether they would help him write the screen play. They both agreed.

After a three month period of bickering and falling out, the script was complete, and was originally titled Glad He Ate Her. They took the script to a producer, who liked the idea and said he would finance the movie as long a two things were done.

1. The script's title would be changed to Gladiator (as it had more to do with the story than a women being eaten),

2. Billy Connolly directed the movie.

Auditions were held across every country in the world (except for Italy) to find suitable actors to play as the main characters. Thanks to Billy Connolly’s connection with comedians and Australians, he suggested to his friend David Crowe that he should audition.

River Phoenix apparently got the job as Commondus because of his cool and calm look. Leslie Nielson stated in an interview, “I had been in serious and comedy movies, and I wanted to play a different role completely. A female character seemed obvious.” Robert Reed had been out of work for ten years and had wanted to get back into acting.

Connolly went to German Pop singer Joana Zimmer and Liverpool singer Wester Paul Gerrard to compose the music. Despite the fact both had different styles, (Zimmer with her German Pop music and Gerrard’s Liverpoolian Rock’ n Roll music) they joined forces and began working together, being paid a hundred pounds a day, with Gerrad also being paid six pints. They both created some of the instantly recognizable German-Australian-Pop-Rock’ n Roll soundtracks movie cinema have ever witness.

Production

Film began production on September 13th, 1999, with David Crowe's famous scene monologing about his beard. By the end of the day, David Crowe was already nominated for an Oscar for Best Bearded Actor.

There were many problems during the shoot. One of the main problems was simply trying to get actor River Phoenix out of bed. “He was like a grumpy teenage, and he was!” stated Connolly. “But once he got up he was fantastic at acting professionally, not to mention he could make very good Caramel Tea.”

Musicians Joana Zimmer and Wester Paul Gerrard had trouble conducting the music, as Gerrad would constantly be trying to recover from the hang over of the six pints from the previous night. So Rector of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Christoph Badelt) was, for some strange reason, drafted in to conduct the music that Zimmer and Gerrard had written.

After filming for four months in Sydney’s famous studios, wilderness out-backs and in Mr. and Mrs. Redfield’s house at 34 Harold Road Drive, it was determined that a green wood was needed to film in for the battle scenes at the start.

So for two months they went to Cricklewood, England, where ancient actor Rolf Harris played the part of the King. However due to fast fight scenes, he was considered too slow to be in them and would often goes off on tangents and start painting wired pictures of Kangaroos. So Michael Gambon took over his role being able to do more of the physical stuff.