‘Gladiator II’ VFX Got ‘a Bit Too Gory’ Even for Ridley Scott

After unleashing tigers in the Colosseum arena against Russell Crowe in “Gladiator,” director Ridley Scott envisioned more wild beasts for “Gladiator II” to fight Paul Mescal and the other gladiators. Historical research provided many examples of deranged showmanship, and Scott landed on a charging white rhino (a discarded idea for “Gladiator”), a dozen hungry baboons, and a pool full of sharks.

Mark Bakowski, the production VFX supervisor from ILM, oversaw the work with his team, while Oxford historian Alexander Mariotti served as consultant. “He gave me these most bizarre things, like pregnant sows versus pregnant beasts,” Bakowski told IndieWire. “It’s like you have a hit action show, and you have to amp it up. I guess the Romans were the same: They see people being killed, it gets a bit boring, and then they think of a new way to kill people and maybe some animals, and, if it’s normalized for them, you could see how decadence begets decadence.”

Building the oversized rhino was a joint effort between special effects supervisor Neil Corbould and prosthetics designer Conor O’Sullivan. They made a mechanical rhino that could drive around the Colosseum set like a go-kart made of thick plastic skin.

“It bounced up and down [with a rider on a saddle], and it gave us a physicality,” Bakowski said. “It didn’t have any legs so we replaced everything but the saddle [in CG]. But it still gave something for the actors to respond to onset with eye lines, speed, and it kicked up dust really nicely.”

‘Gladiator II‘Paramount Pictures

The baboons, though, were definitely the terrifying highlight given how they would bite and rip off arms. Scott watched documentary footage and was intrigued by the muscle tone of a hairless (alopecia) baboon, and that’s the one he wanted for the lead. “Most people have never seen a baboon without hair, so it’s a bit of an interesting sell on those grounds,” Bakowski said.

“But seeing it in an action movie without understanding what it is, is demanding,” he continued. “So what we did was we took that footage of that baboon, we matched it perfectly, in terms of the muscle tone and the flesh wobbles. But, in the end, it does look un-baboon-like, to a certain extent.”

ILM also worked hard at selling the physicality of the baboon, which was matched by Mescal’s Lucius, who bites with the same ferocity. “We had stuntmen in there playing the baboons because it’s quite hard for someone to physically mime wrestling,” added Bakowski. “You need the interaction, you need the strength and the strain of the muscles, all those things are a bit harder to fake. In the end, it’s about getting good performance from the actors.”

All 12 baboon stunt actors were replaced with keyframe animation in multiple passes as Scott shot with as many as a dozen cameras for a sharp look and a staccato rhythm. Then they built out from there. The hero baboon in the foreground got the most attention and was made more artistically interesting by adding extra tension to the muscle or lighting across the jaw.

‘Gladiator II’Paramount Pictures

The fighting with Mescal was particularly vicious. “I remember, at one point, I was quite pleased with it,” Bakowski said. “But we got [Ridley] to say there’s too much blood at one point, which I think was quite an achievement, because he’s not averse to having a bit of blood in his shots. But he said, ‘It’s a bit too gory.'”

However, the most elaborate gladiator fight sequence was the staged naval battle with two combatant ships in a pool of sharks, another collaboration with Corbould’s special effects team. The original plan was to use more practical than CG water, but that got reversed due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Instead, the hydraulic-driven ships pitched and rolled surrounded by tanks of water around the perimeter of Arthur Max’s Colosseum set. The men falling into the shark-filled water were filmed elsewhere on dry land (with stuntmen on jerk rigs), augmented by digital islands, CG water, and animated sand tiger sharks.

“There were lots of discussion about the nature of the water,” Bakowski added. “Would it look like a Venice canal, which was murky and is where we started, or like Ridley’s swimming pool, which was crystal clear? We ended up with a compromise. Ridley wanted to see the sharks. He said they had a great face.”

“Gladiator II” is now in theaters.