WTF Happened To This Movie? – The JoBlo series that looks at troubled productions, curious creative decisions, box-office failures, surprising successes, and cult favorites!
Director Ridley Scott and star Russell Crowe’s big-budget historical epic Gladiator ended up an award-winning, crowd-pleasing success in 2000. But with ambitious goals, a constant search for a script, a frustrated star and a major death during filming, the production was almost like trying to survive in the arena.
For one thing, Scott was tackling a genre that hadn’t been successful for a very long time. We think of historical action dramas now as pretty legit at the box office, but the genre was almost entirely dormant throughout the late eighties and nineties. Scott himself hadn’t had a box office hit with Thelma & Louise back in 1991. Russell Crowe, while respected as an actor, was not considered a box office draw. Plus, one of the movie’s stars, Oliver Reed, was an absolute wild man who died midway through production after the bender to end all benders.
Yet, against all odds, Gladiator was a smash. It turned Russell Crowe into the biggest star of the 2000’s overnight, put Scott right back on the A-list and established historical action as one of the dominant blockbuster genres of the era before being usurped by superhero films. Every big male star would get his own period piece within a few years, with Tom Cruise (The Last Samurai), Brad Pitt (Troy), and more dipping their toes into the genre. Twenty years later, Gladiator is so fondly remembered they’re still trying to get a sequel made! But let’s go back to the film that started it all! Get your thumbs ready and find out “WTF Happened to GLADIATOR!”
WTF Happened to this Movie is produced and narrated by Dave Davis. Berge Garabedian is the Executive Producer. Check out more episodes below!