Deadline: ‘Gladiator II' is “Fantastic," Oscar-Worthy and Denzel is “Extraordinary"

Deadline’s Pete Hammond, who has always been incredibly generous in sharing stories with me over the years, has a new piece up tackling the dire state of the 2025 Oscar race.

What Hammond’s saying is that we’ve only had one Best Picture contender released so far this year, and it’s Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.” I won’t disagree with him on that. He namechecks Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” and Alex Garland’s “Civil War” as outside possibilities, given the weak year we’ve so far had, but don’t bet on them.

However, what piqued my interest in Hammond’s piece is the intel he shares about Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” and Robert Zemeckis’ “Here” potentially being the real deal. I’ve already reported on both of these films, and the rousing early reactions they have received (here and here). Hammond is backing up my intel with his own.

He says he spoke with “a couple of industry veterans”, both Oscar voters, who told him that “Gladiator II” and “Here” are both “fantastic,” and could be major players in the upcoming Oscar race.

The producer very enthusiastically praised Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II”, said Paul Mescal was terrific and Denzel Washington extraordinary in it. He also saw the new Robert Zemeckis film “Here”, which stars and de-ages Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, also reuniting them from the 1994 Zemeckis film “Forrest Gump”. Both that one and Scott’s 2000 Gladiator took Best Picture and now it appears both veteran directors will be back in the race — big time. Scott still has yet to win an Oscar, having been overlooked four times in the director race.

It is now quite obvious that Paramount is trying to intensify the hype train for “Gladiator II,” which cost them $350M to produce. In February, it was leaked to a trade that Paramount Execs were so “blown away” by the footage they saw of “Gladiator II” that they decided in hiring Scott to direct an upcoming Bee Gees biopic for them.

Want more? Earlier this month, at CinEurope 2024, Paramount President of International Theatrical Distribution Mark Viane told the crowd that “Gladiator II” is “well worth the wait” and that it features some of the “biggest action sequences ever put on film.”

Both “Gladiator II” and “Here” come out in November. We might not actually see them hit the fall fests. The two Oscar voters Hammond spoke to were excited to “finally have something Oscar worthy” coming down the pipeline because, in their own words, this year “the going has been very slow” at the movies.

I wouldn’t call the year we’ve had, so far, a weak one. Sure, if you’re not that adventurous in your movie selections, and just seek out Oscar bait, then you might have been disappointed by the lackluster fare, but international gems could be found in the likes of Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera,” Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” Matteo Garrone’s “Io Capitano” and Bertrand Bonello’s “The Beast.”

I do agree that, as far as U.S. cinema goes, it’s been a bit wobblier in terms of quality, and there’s not much coming up that might change that.

Save for Scott and Zemeckis, the biggest directors with new films coming in the fall are Luca Guadagnino (“Queer”), Steve McQueen (“Blitz”), Pedro Almodovar (“The Room Next Door”), Clint Eastwood (“Juror #2”), Pablo Larrain (“Maria”) and Mike Leigh (“Hard Truths”).