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Coliseum
“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”
Maximus (Russell Crowe)
When production of Gladiator began, shortly after the script was finalized, the film crew began looking for locations to shoot. Sites that belonged to the Roman Empire are privileged but for Ridley Scott, it is out of the question to invest the streets of Rome and to put his cameras inside the Colosseum. Few directors have been granted permission to use this iconic historical monument and the director has other plans in mind anyway. “I love the Colosseum, but it’s full of pockmarks – it’s wrecked. We did look at another coliseum in France, but in the end it was simpler to build one.”
The whole team is based at Fort Ricasoli in Malta. An exact replica of a part of the Colosseum is built in plaster and plywood for the sum of one million dollars. The plan is to exploit this section to replicate it digitally and thus complete the building during post-production. The technicians erected a spectacular sixteen meter high building, capable of holding 2,000 extras.
If of course their work required travel to Rome in order to do justice to the majesty of the arena, not a single shot was taken on location. And fun fact, only the shoes of the main characters come from the capital.
The production hired 2,000 extras to take their place in the Colosseum. All of them have been digitally duplicated in order to arrive at a total of 35,000 spectators.
Learn more about the making of Gladiator and its construction of the Colosseum through Cult! 100 mythical places of cinema. Available on our Fantrippers store.
Colosseum
In the heart of Rome, the Colosseum today tells its visitors a story as tumultuous as it is exciting.
The construction of the Colosseum began between 70 and 72 AD, under the emperor Vespasian and ended in 80, under the reign of Titus. With a capacity of 50,000 spectators, it was used to stage wild animal fights and gladiator duels. Later, from the Middle Ages, it housed houses, workshops, a quarry and a Catholic sanctuary. Damaged by earthquakes, it was also plundered by the inhabitants of Rome. The latter did not hesitate to dismantle it in order to recover stones. Today, although incomplete, it is the main attraction of Rome and receives more than 7.6 million visitors per year.
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Cult! movies: 100 mythical places of cinema [French Edition]
Since the dawn of cinema, films have invaded the world and highlighted sometimes unexpected places. Every film location has its secrets. The latter are sometimes as exciting as the feature films themselves.
Did you know that the cemetery where the final duel of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was built from scratch and that no body lies there? Or that the bus ofInto The Wild has been moved to discourage fans from spending the night there? From the story of the construction of The Bridge on the River Kwai to the incredible encounter during the shooting of the last scene ofIndiana Jones and the Last Crusadeembark on an exciting world tour with the greatest stars of the seventh art. Shiver in the real haunted house ofAmityville and discover the terrifying anecdotes of the making ofApocalypse Now in the Philippines. Visit the building of Blade Runner before stopping at Hogwarts and finally landing in Jurassic Parkin the middle of the Hawaiian archipelago. What if we also took you behind the scenes of the making of the Hobbits’ village of Lord of the Rings ?
Produced by a team of pop-culture specialists and enhanced by numerous anecdotes, Cult! movies tells the secrets of the places that made the history of cinema.
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Discover all the places Gladiator on our map
By Gilles Rolland
Passionné de cinéma, de rock and roll, de séries TV et de littérature. Rédacteur de presse et auteur des livres Le Heavy Metal au cinéma, Paroles de fans Guns N' Roses, Paroles de fans Rammstein et Welcome to my Jungle : 100 albums rock et autres anecdotes dépareillées. Adore également voyager à la recherche des lieux les plus emblématiques de la pop culture.