Historian slams ‘Gladiator II’ as ‘total Hollywood bulls–t’
Ridley Scott’s upcoming “Gladiator II” film has already drawn criticism — despite having yet to be released.
Dr. Shadi Bartsch, a leading historian and classics professor at the University of Chicago, told The Hollywood Reporter that the film’s idea is “total Hollywood bulls–t.”
Written by David Scarpa, the sequel to the Russell Crowe-led 2000 historical epic showcases the world over two decades later.
Paul Mescal plays the grown-up Lucius Verus II, the son of Crowe’s character, Maximus, whom Spencer Treat Clark portrayed in the original film. Lucius is the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and nephew of Commodus, who was originally played by Joaquin Phoenix.
In the film’s trailer, one scene shows the Colosseum in Rome being flooded and filled with sharks.
“I don’t think Romans knew what a shark was,” said Bartsch, who boasts degrees from Princeton, Harvard and UC Berkeley.
Bartsch did note that the Romans really did fill the Colosseum with water for various naval battles.
Another scene from the film shows rhinos charging into the Colosseum, which Bartsch notes is only partially accurate.
Bartsch explained that Martial, a Roman poet, “wrote a poem in 80 AD about a rhinoceros tossing a bull up to the sky” — however it would have been a single-horned rhino and not a two-horned one shown in the film.
The historian noted that Scott got the news element wrong in the film, explaining that Romans did not read newspapers while sipping tea in a cafe, because newspapers were invented some 1,200 years later.
“They did have daily news — Acta Diuma — but it was carved and placed at certain locations,” she told the outlet. “You had to go to it, you couldn’t hold it at a cafe. Also, they didn’t have cafes.”
The Post has reached out to Scott’s reps for comment.
Scott’s seasoned team reprise their roles: cinematographer John Mathieson, production designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates.
The film also stars Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington — who portrays former slave and Lucius’ mentor, Macrinus.
The original film won five Oscars and raked in $461 million worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing film that year.
It’s not the first time one of Scott’s films got fact-checked by a historian.
Following the release of his film “Napoleon” last year, historian Dan Snow pointed out a slew of inaccuracies in a video on social media at the time.
But the criticism fell on deaf ears, as Scott, 86, responded to Snow’s remarks with a simple, “Get a life” during an interview with The New Yorker.
“Gladiator II” hits theaters on Friday, Nov. 22.
