How accurate was Gladiator II’s shark-infested water battle at the Colosseum?

Gladiator II aimed to outdo the grandiose action scenes of the first film. But in a movie where combatants fight each other in the Colosseum with tigers and chariots abound, how did Ridley Scott go bigger? More animals. More elaborate environments. In the sequel to Scott’s own 2000 Academy Award-winner, audiences were treated to the gladiators being pitted against ravenous monkeys, charging rhinos and a simulated sea battle, complete with sharks in the water.

These sequences seem incredibly outlandish, but is it accurate? Well, yes and perhaps no. Variety reports that Chris Epplett, who is a Greek and Roman history professor at the University of Lethbridge, spoke with Vulture and stated that while the staged water battles were indeed a form of gladiatorial combat, he hadn’t personally learned if sharks were used. Epplett said that “there was a period when they could have flooded the floor of the arena. There was basically a period of, I think, 10 to 20 years before they put the full basement in, when they could have flooded the floor and had exhibitions with marine animals and that sort of thing.”

Scott, who has never shied away from being snide about his decisions, had joked at the Alien: Romulus premiere about how they would’ve gotten sharks in the Colosseum. He said, “That’s easy. Someone said, ‘How do you get sharks in the Colosseum?’ I said, ‘You can build the Colosseum — how stupid are you?’ I mean, you catch a few sharks and lob them in. They could do that.”

As for Gladiator III – which we should note hasn’t officially been greenlit – Ridley Scott is taking inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather saga, particularly as it relates to the central character’s arc. As he told The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s already an idea. I always had this idea that The Godfather ends with Michael not wanting the job. He sits there, and there’s this push-in on Al. He’s already had his hand kissed. He’s betrayed his wife with lies. [Lucius] isn’t quite that evil at all. He’s wondering, ‘Father, what do I do?’ Paul not wanting the job is a good place to start.”

For his part, Paul Mescal – who plays Lucius, son to murdered father Maximus – has said he is “massively down” for a Gladiator III but hopes it won’t be another quarter-century until we get it. And with Ridley Scott at 86 right now, he definitely won’t have time to let his plans for Gladiator III sit.

While we wait for the final box office numbers to come in, Gladiator II is tracking around $60 million, which would be well over what 2000’s Gladiator made on opening weekend. With that, we can probably expect the sequel to fare better at the overall box office as well, despite the original pulling in over $450 million worldwide. With numbers like that, a Gladiator III does seem like a given, especially with how Gladiator II ended. Scott even said that he had to keep Lucius alive and kill off his mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), to help develop the character, suggesting it would help propel actions for another film.