Gladiator 2 Filming Start Date Delayed

Academy award nominee, Paul Mescal, is set to lead the upcoming sequel to Gladiator.

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A new report confirms that the acclaimed production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which stars newly announced Academy Award nominee Paul Mescal playing the role of Stanley Kowalski, is set to move to the Phoenix Theater in West End London for a limited six-week run. The news of the new theater run for the celebrated production has seen the production of Ridley Scott‘s Gladiator 2, a sequel to the director’s 2000 epic starring Russell Crowe, pushed back by two weeks from its original March 2023 start date.

The news of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, makings its way onto a West End stage comes just after the announcement of Mescal’s first-ever Academy Award nomination for “Best Actor” for his highly lauded performance in Charlotte Wells‘ Aftersun. The current run of the stage production is taking place at the 370-seat Almeida Theatre in the London Borrow of Islington, where it will play until February 4. Deadline notes that the Almeida’s box office manager saw a “tsunami” of demands for tickets to the show following the announcement of Mescal’s nomination.

West End’s Phoenix Theater contains 1,012 seats, with Adam Speers, the executive in charge of productions at the Ambassador Theatre Group, telling Deadline that the run of A Streetcar Named Desire in the theater will be incredible. Adding, “the energy inside the Phoenix Theatre will be like the biggest rock band in the world have come back together for one last gig.” The six-week run at the Phoenix is set to begin on March 20 and is expected to sell out within minutes of the box office opening for general sale on February 1. With this run, Gladiator 2 is now set to begin shooting roughly two weeks later than originaly scheduled.

The 2000 film “Gladiator” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe was a box office success, earning over $457 million worldwide. It was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won 5, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe’s portrayal of the main character, Maximus Decimus Meridius.

Paul Mescal’s Role in Gladiator 2 Mescal would lead the film as Lucius Versus, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and nephew of Joaquin Phoenix‘s Commodus. Picking up many years after the first film and will follow the story of Lucius as a grown man. Mescal and Scott reportedly began to have serious meetings for the role after the first draft of the film was delivered in November of last year; the film’s script is being developed by David Scarpa. Other actors who were considered for the role include Richard Madden and Timothée Chalamet, as well as last summer’s hot-shot film stars Miles Teller and Austin Butler, it has been noted that Mescal was Scott’s top pick for the role.