After much anticipation and a lot of thirst, the first trailer for Gladiator II is finally here. The sequel to Ridley Scott’s Roman epic premieres in theaters on November 22, and Scott has assembled a strong cast of Internet boyfriends and heavy hitters to lure people back to his blockbuster vision after more than 20 years since the original. Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, and Denzel Washington are among the new faces populating the sequel, alongside returning cast members Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi.
Gladiator II is a lot like Gladiator I. It’s about a notable Roman who once enjoyed a place of prominence in the hierarchy of power who loses in a critical battle and ends up an anonymous slave forced to fight as a gladiator. By finding glory in the games, this fighter has the chance to enact positive change in the entire Roman Empire. In the first film, that was General Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe). It turns out, the political reform Maximus died for didn’t really stick—isn’t that always the way?
In Gladiator II, his biggest fan steps into the ring. Lucius (Mescal), the son/grandson/nephew of the former emperor(s), was sent away by his mother Lucilla (Nielsen) to live beyond the reach of the empire. Empires being what they are (vast, bloody, homogenizing forces of colonization), home catches up with him eventually in the form of an invading army. While he may not remember his parents, he does remember Maximus, and “that a slave could take revenge against an emperor.” Lucius finds himself following in Maximus’ footsteps in the gladiator ring with the chance to oppose the rule of two sadistic co-emperors, Geta (Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). “It’s very ‘angry young man’ drama in that sense. He can see the way Rome has kind of fallen in on itself,” Mescal said in a recent Vanity Fair profile. “Rome represents all the personal neglect that he felt as a child. Suddenly he’s thrust back into that world and has direct proximity to all of the things that he thinks he hates and doesn’t feel attached to anymore.”
Luckily, there’s someone to direct Lucius’ rage: Macrinus (Washington), an arms dealer who keeps a “stable of gladiators” and declares in the trailer that Lucius “will be my instrument.” Macrinus has his own reasons to resent the empire; he’s risen in wealth and power as far as he possibly could as a former slave. Power is the thing that everybody’s obsessed with in this world, and Macrinus is no different, looking to take even more of it for himself. “Rome must fall,” he says in the trailer. “I need only give it a push.” Let’s see if the power structure actually changes this time.