gladiator Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While Cinematical has been busy covering all the movie-related Comic Con treats, our sister site TV Squad has been knee deep in all-things boob tube. Similar to film, all the genre-based TV shows bring their stars to Comic Con to preview upcoming seasons and geek out with fellow fans. Today is the biggest day for television at Con, and so we'll report back tomorrow with some of the stuff our friends over at TV Squad managed to uncover -- but in the meantime, here's a taste of what they've been up to so far.

-- Did you know Starz was getting ready to premiere a new show called Spartacus: Blood and Sand? No, it's not Sparta or anything (it actually takes place in Rome and follows the city's most famous gladiator), though the brand new trailer totally looks like Ridley Scott's Gladiator ... if Zack Snyder directed it instead. Seriously, the thing has such a 300 vibe that for a second I thought it was from the same team, but it's not. Know who's behind this? Sam Raimi. Yup, it's Raimi, Rob Talpert (Drag Me to Hell) and Steven S. DeKnight (Smallville) executive producing, while Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess), Peter Mensa (300) and Erin Cummings (Dollhouse) star. The show itself looks bloody, vicious and pretty awesome, especially for those who dug the violence overload in 300.

Watch the trailer after the jump and let us know what you think ...

All this week we'll be highlighting some of our favorite scenes from Oscar-winning films and performances leading up to this year's Academy Awards on Sunday night.

Even though there are plenty of people who think Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe may not have deserved Oscar gold back in 2001, I will respectfully disagree ... and the opening scene of Gladiator is why. Say what you will about the film's hyped-up machismo, uneven pacing, or cavalcade of accents, but you have to admire a flick that in under 10 minutes can make you feel like you're ready to charge into a battle to the death. Not to mention that this scene is responsible for making the phrase "Hold the line!" something a lot cooler than just a song by Toto.

The success of Gladiator mainly rests on the shoulders of Crowe, who manages to make you give a damn about a relatively 2-D character. So even though the box-office and the Academy rarely agree, I still think Ridley and company deserved the Oscar for creating a 'thinking man's action hero'. Gladiator might not be a perfect film, but thanks to this opening scene, it has earned a permanent place on my list of movie favorites.

Gladiator trivia (via IMDB)

• Among the chanting of the Germanic hordes at the beginning of the film are samples of the Zulu war chant from the film Zulu (1964).
  
  
• The wounds on 'Russell Crowe's face after the opening battle scene are real, caused when his horse startled and backed him into tree branches.

• Mel Gibson was offered, but turned down the part of Maximus.

At least that's what producer Brian Grazer would like you to believe regarding his upcoming "reversal" on the Robin Hood legend. According to the MTV Movies Blog, the revisionist epic Nottingham will be the Gladiator-ish version of an oft-told tale. And since he's already got Ridley Scott as director and Russell Crowe for his leading man, this seems to be a pretty logical direction for Grazer to lean towards. (Plus all those box office receipts, Oscar wins and DVD sales make for a pretty alluring formula.)

Here's what the producer had to say about the project: "Nottingham is the Gladiator version of Robin Hood ... I think it will have the same propulsion that Gladiator had - the same adrenaline hits." Sir Ridley also chimes in with a few vague-yet-contorted plot threads, but you'll have to visit the source to check those out. I will tell you that the script was written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris (yes, the guys who gave you Demon Knight and Bulletproof Monk), but the IMDb indicates that Brian Helgeland is also attached to the project -- which is good news because he's a fine screenwriter. Plus he also wrote the best AND the worst film of 1997, and that's just strange.

More on Ridley Scott's Nottingham as it becomes available. This one sounds like it could be pretty cool, and double my interest if they make it rated R! (Yeah, right.)

You knew it was coming sooner or later (personally, I'm in favor of later), and Variety has just made it official: National Lampoon will begin production this fall on National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. Awesome! Looking to spoof such films as 300, Gladiator, Troy and Braveheart, pic will follow an out-of-shape Spartan general named Awesomest who "fails forward on a path to greatness." Hmm, do I smell Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris circling this script? Written by Jason Burinescu, the film will be produced by National Lampoon, Dan Farah and Burinescu.

Lampoon, who recently began financing and producing their own films in-house, instead of licensing away their name so that it could appear on the cover of crappy Paris Hilton movies, have just completed work on two new flicks: National Lampoon's Ratko: The Dictator's Son and National Lampoon's Bag Boy (based off a script from someone who watched Employee of the Month and actually thought there were ideas in there worthy of further big-screen exploration). I can't remember the last time National Lampoon actually produced an all-out spoof flick (come to think of it, have they ever?), and so part of me is looking forward to seeing what they do with this. I expect a ton of green screen work and shoddy acting (no cast has been announced yet), but hopefully we'll find a few laugh-out-loud moments somewhere in there. There hasn't been a fun spoof since, well -- do we count the original Scary Movie? Will 301 be the exception? Or will we walk away with a list of 301 reasons why the movie should never have been made?

Wayyy back in 2003, Ridley Scott was real keen on directing a sequel to his Oscar-winning flick Gladiator. However, unable to come up with a way to make the film without Russell Crowe (ya know, since his character Maximus died at the end of the first one), Scott quickly abandoned the idea. Then, in 2005, there was word from both Crowe and Djimon Hounsou that a Gladiator 2 script was, indeed, in the works.

One year and a Gladiator musical later, nothing more had been said on the subject ... until now. According to reports (which feel strangely familiar, so feel free to hang us out to dry if this is old news), Ridley Scott will not only be making a sequel to Gladiator, but he also plans to somehow factor Crowe into the whole thing. Says Scott, "I will probably do a sequel to Gladiator. The only problem is Russell Crowe was such a powerful presence and, of course, Maximus dies at the end. We'll have to get Russell back somehow." I don't know about you, but I'd love to see how they plan on resurrecting Maximus without giving it some cheesy soap opera-ish spin. As of now there are no other details, but you bet your ass I'll be on the look out for some. All hail Maximus!

While a Gladiator sequel is all but dead in the water, London-based fans of the original film will soon get to re-live their favorite scenes through song and dance. That's right -- Ridley Scott's Gladiator is heading to a place no warrior has ever been before: musical theater. The musical, to run in London's West End, will be adapted for the stage by William Nicholson, who also wrote the film's screenplay. While Russell Crowe will not be reprising the role of Maximus (Thank God for that!), Hans Zimmer's original score will be used throughout.

Replacing Crowe will be Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell, who some of you may know from his appearance on the show Crossing Jordan. Not for nothing, but I feel a little weird about this one. It's hard to imagine a bunch of burly, hard-edged gladiators preparing to battle to the death and, yet, having enough time to sing and dance about the whole thing. While the idea doesn't sound too appealing (to me, at least), I'm definitely curious to see how they go about pulling it off. And, if it's a hit, I wonder if the musical will find its way to Broadway.