Paul Mescal is quietly moving on from playing dramatic and sensitive types to bigger things, like gladiators in a scorching hot ancient stadium filled with people who want to see him die. This was before the Colosseum was turned into a music venue.
Mescal stars in Ridley Scott’s upcoming Gladiator 2 alongside Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Denzel Washington. According to Variety, a teaser for the film was shown this week at CinemaCon and it did not disappoint.
The teaser saw Mescal come face to face with a charging rhino, baboons, and, the scariest of all, The Mandalorian. All while looking like the most jacked Irishman you’ve ever seen.
Here are some more takeaways from those in attendance:
There were naval bombardments, political intrigue aplenty, and a pair of diabolical emperors who seem even crazier than Joaquin Phoenix’s unhinged monarch from the first film. Manipulating everything is Denzel Washington’s shadowy operator. He seems to be pulling the strings, intending to use Mescal as a blunt instrument as he looks to steamroll over an empire that’s gone seriously off the rails. “Rome must fall,” he says at one point. “I need only to give it a push.”
Stranger Things‘ Joseph Quinn and The White Lotus’ Fred Hechinger will also star as co-emperors Geta and Caracalla, who are seen “wearing face paint and watching the whole spectacle from their imperial boxes.”
Are you… entertained?
While we don’t have a teaser yet, we can expect to see some footage soon, as the movie hits theaters on November 22. For now, you can watch Russell Crowe in the original flick streaming on Paramount+. Or something else!
