The Gladiator sequel trailer was released today and sees Paul Mescal take on the role of Lucius Verus, decades after the death of Maximus Decimus Meridius (played by Russell Crowe) - but fans aren't happy with the music choice, accent choices and the decision to make the film altogether.
With Crowe's legendary Maximus long since dead and buried, it is vengeful Lucius - the grandson of Rome's former emperor Marcus Aurelius and son of Lucilla - who must fight for his liberty after being taken into slavery.
A former heir to the Roman empire, Lucius is imprisoned by Pedro Pascal's Marcus Acacius - a feared general who honed his fighting skills under the tutelage of Maximus - and his marauding army of troops.
Played by a then 12-year-old Spencer Treat Clark in Scott's original film, Lucius is now fully grown and intent on forcing his way out of the notorious fighting pits, at all costs.
The highly anticipated Ridley Scott trailer dropped today and whilst many fans were thrilled to finally get a sneak peek at the next phase in the film, many were also left let down and disappointed.
Taking to their X accounts, one infuriated fan wrote: "The music used for the trailer just took me out of it. Terrible choice of music to use in this genre. Made the trailer weak."
Paul Mescal has taken over the reigns from Russell Crowe
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
"Having a rap song in the trailer is blasphemy when the soundtrack for the first movie is one of the most epic pieces of music ever," another slammed.
A third expressed: "3 takeaways from the trailer: 1) bad song choice. There’s no rap in Ancient Rome. 2) this movie will not be as iconic and have the same grand scale quality as the original.
"3) no one is matching Russell Crowe’s epic performance. It looks like it could be pretty good at best. Very underwhelming trailer compared to my expectations. I’ll still watch it but I’d be lying if I didn’t say my hype meter dropped a notch."
"Looks very Hollywood. Uninteresting and not historically accurate. The Trailer makes me feel like I watched the entire movie," a fourth penned before someone else added: "As soon as I heard the music I knew this was going to fail."
The Stranger Things star plays the villain of the sequel
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
A sixth pleaded: "Can we have a movie trailer without hip hop and just use the original score of the movie like begin 2000s?"
It wasn't just the music which people had an issue with, many pointed out the odd twinge to Denzel Washington's accent, with some also questioning why a new movie was needed.
The latest edition of the film leaves Lucius inspired by the feats of Maximus, who must find his way out of "the greatest temple Rome ever built" in the Colosseum, where sword-wielding soldiers, rampaging rhinos and even Marcus Acacius himself await.
The new trailer also features Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger as impish Roman co-emperors Geta and Caracalla, with both bearing a strong resemblance to Marcus Aurelius' scheming son Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Pedro's character faces off against Paul's
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Gladiator 2 will have tough competition as it has the same release date as Wicked - with many fans comparing the date to the Barbenheimer campaign when Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day.
As fans have dubbed the day as Glicked, Mescal has reacted to the phenomenon, as told ET: "Wickdiator doesn’t really roll off the tongue does it? I think my preference would probably be Glicked if it has a similar effect to what it did for Barbie and Oppenheimer.
"It would be amazing ’cause I think the films couldn’t be more polar opposites and it worked in that context previously. So fingers crossed people come out and see both films on opening weekend."
