Russell Crowe Thought Gladiator's First Draft Was Total 'Rubbish'
There's always room for improvement, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes.
The script of an Oscar-winning film was once called "rubbish" by its future star Russell Crowe. The movie in question was Gladiator, which depicted the Roman Empire at its height.
Many people thought the Empire was just the political Senate, but others saw Rome mostly for its people or its gladiatorial adventures.
Well, the movie turned out to give some answers, showing that Rome was somewhere in between those two ends.
Russell Crowe was offered the role of General Maximus Decimus Meridius, the once glorious warrior who was brought low by betrayal.
He gets sold into slavery, but because of his fighting skills and leadership, his status as a gladiator earns him the respect of the crowds and the wrath of the powerful.
The Gladiator we have now has won many awards and is considered a classic.
It has it all: the fantastic true to life fight scenes, excellent cinematography, breathtaking soundtrack and of course brilliant actors' performances.
So there's no wonder the box office of the movie was $503.2 million. But it all could have gone wrong if Crowe had decided that the first edition of the script was okay.
At first he wanted to just give up the role, but then with the help of the film's director, Ridley Scott, who suggested they could just do the scenes that Crowe liked better, they made the greatest gladiator movie of all time.
So the script, as they claim, was only 21 pages long, when movies of such genre often have not less than a 100.
In an interview with Variety, Crowe said that he was confident he would make a great lead in the film, it was the script that made him hesitate whether or not to do it.
But once the issue was resolved with the director, there was nothing left to keep him out of the film.
Source: Variety