Gladiator: the genesis of the film that revived the peplum fashion

Out of fashion since the end of the 1970s, the peplum made a strong comeback in Hollywood thanks to Ridley Scott's feature film made in 2000. The story of a pretty unexpected poker move.

TMC benefits from the theatrical release of Gladiator II to rebroadcast the original with Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. To wait, we return in detail to its complicated production… but which bore fruit, Gladiator having received enormous acclaim since its release.

Ridley Scott recounts Gladiator II: “I thought a sequel could have been atrocious”

Essential in cinemas until the end of the 1970s, the peplums gradually disappeared from the posters. Forgotten are the great ancient frescoes which gradually tired the public and which had greatly contributed to the Golden Age of Hollywood (Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Spartacus). Except for a few diehards (Tinto Brass who signed Caligula in 1980, or Desmond Davis who made Clash of the Titans the same year), the genre was put away in the closets of American and European studios for twenty years, from the end of the 70s to the end of the 90s. It was therefore quite a surprise when the project Gladiator arrived in Hollywood. Indeed, who, at the end of the 1990s, would still have relied on a genre considered outdated? And yet, the director Ridley Scott and the screenwriter David Franzoni tried it.

The birth of Gladiator

It is David Franzoni who is responsible for the authorship of the project Gladiator. The screenwriter wrote the very first version of the story based on Those who are going to die, the news of Daniel P. Mannix. “The film describes the late Roman Empire, and what was happening in the arenas at the time. It was heavy and if you look at the ruins that still exist, you know that it wasn't just a fashion, it It was considerable. So it was my first source of inspiration to write this story. It stayed in the back of my mind. In fact, during a meeting for Amistad, I warned. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald who I will return with a script about ancient Rome. It's been on my mind for a while“, confided the screenwriter in an interview given in 2001 to the Writers Guild of America.
This idea which germinated in his mind for years, David Franzoni improved it little by little, drawing inspiration in particular from L'History Augustus, a book in Latin collecting the lives of the Roman emperors. It is in this book that he discovers the fate of Commodus, who participates in gladiator fights at the Colosseum and is killed by a slave named Narcissus. Bingo. He finally finds the central plot of his scenario. “That was my story: who is Narcissus? There was no historical writing about him, but I knew he would be the hero of my screenplay. I knew I was going to invent his life”, continues the screenwriter.

To the rescue

Writing a screenplay is good. Managing to sell it when the peplum fashion is long over is even better. However, this project, going against the Hollywood trend of the time, quickly found a buyer. From the first drafts of his screenplay, he got the green light from DreamWorks, which bet on the one who left its mark while working on Amistad. It is also thanks to Spielberg (one of the creators of DreamWorks with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen) that he is really getting his film started. “My pitch to Steven was surprisingly short. He only had three basic questions. My gladiator film, is it Roman fighters, not American, Japanese or something else? I said yes. The action is happening at the Coliseum? Yes. Fights with swords and animals to the death? says David Franzoni.

To achieve Gladiator, also produced by Universal Pictures and Scott Free Productions, the producers called on Ridley Scott. Attracted to the project by an image (the painting Pollice Verso of 1872 by the firefighter painter Jean-Léon Gérôme), he embarked on the adventure when nothing predestined him to make a peplum. “I usually say that my career plan is that I don't have one. The most important thing for me is to surprise myself and therefore, in turn, to surprise others. Believe me, before the success of Gladiator , the idea of ​​me making a peplum made more than one person skeptical”, he confided to The Express in 2008.

The phenomenal success

Despite a script that was difficult to complete and modified several times, a very fragmented shoot and complicated post-production (Find our article on behind the scenes of the shoot by clicking here), the film was a big success, bringing in nearly 458 million dollars in the world (187 million in the United States) and winning numerous awards including five Oscars (notably those for best film and best actor), two Golden Globes (best dramatic film and best film score) and five BAFTA Awards including the Best Film award.

A plebiscite that no one expected, between the outdated genre of the film and the mixed reception of the project in the press. Far from enthusing the crowds, Gladiator aroused a flood of criticism when it was started, particularly on the choice of the main actor: Russell Crowe. Taking an actor far from being a star to carry out such a project made Ridley Scott look like a madman. The latter did not let it happen. His response: play the secrecy card and no longer communicate. Not stupid, the mystery gets people talking and arouses curiosity. A curiosity which was further exacerbated with the arrivals of Hans Zimmer for music, Joaquin Phoenix or even Connie Nielsen.

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As always in Hollywood, when a poker move works, many people rush into the breach to try their luck. Without much surprise, the success of Gladiator therefore gave ideas to a lot of people. More surprisingly, far from being the start of a spark, Ridley Scott's work succeeded in the crazy challenge of relaunching the peplum fashion in Hollywood. “This film showed what could be done with intelligent use of computer-generated images (the Colosseum, for example, was almost entirely digital), epic violence and magnificent landscapes. We were reminded that the spectacular, until 'then reserved for science fiction films, could also be discovered in past worlds which seemed as exotic as future worlds“, explained Martin Winkler (a professor of classics at George Mason University) in 2014 at Point.

“Peplums are a fun category because as big spectacles, with their necessarily high costs, they are blockbusters, but at the same time, as 'historical' films, they are supposed to attract an older, literate audience (…) On the other hand, you should know that big budget films now always target young spectators, because they are the ones who bring in the most money. However, this works with Greek and Roman mythology because. it is associated with what they learn to school“, added Clare Foster, screenwriter and researcher at the University of Cambridge, to our colleagues.

A winning cocktail for Hollywood, so much so that we have lost count of the peplums since the 2000s. Major Hollywood figures have dabbled in this style of films that they would not have considered just a few years ago. Brad Pitt And Orlando Bloom were filmed in Troy of Wolfgang Petersen (2004), Colin Farrell And Angelina Jolie have worn Alexander ofOliver Stone (2005) or even Gerard Butler And Michael Fassbender were on display at 300 of Zack Snyder (2007). More recently, we were entitled to Clash of the Titans of Louis Leterrier (2010), Wrath of the Titans of Jonathan Liebesman (2012), Pompeii 3D of Paul W. S. Anderson (2014), 300: The Birth of an Empire of Noam Murro or even Hercules of Brett Ratner (2014) and Exodus: Gods and Kings by Ridley Scott. All for rather mediocre results at the American box office : Hercules with Dwayne Johnson was especially successful in Russia, and alone Troy, 300 And Clash of the Titans were great successes.

The neo-peplum arises from time to time, each time hoping to reproduce the resurrection of Gladiator. This year, it works again thanks to the direct sequel to the film by Ridley Scott, who returns to the helm after years of rumors.

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The story of Gladiator, rebroadcast this Monday evening on TMC:

The Roman general Maximus is the most faithful support of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whom he led from victory to victory with exemplary bravery and dedication. Jealous of Maximus' prestige, and even more so of the emperor's love for him, Marcus Aurelius' son, Commodus, brutally assumed power, then ordered the general's arrest and execution. Maximus escapes his assassins but cannot prevent the massacre of his family. Captured by a slave trader, he becomes a gladiator and plots his revenge.

The trailer for the film:

Gladiator II, the ultimate entertainment from Ridley Scott [critique]