Gladiator II storms into theaters today, 24 years after the original. The Ridley Scott sequel has received a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, in part due to the tremendous performances from Paul Mescal (Lucius), Pedro Pascal (Marcus Acacius) and Denzel Washington (Macrinus).
Mescal, who takes on the lead role, had nothing but high praise for his charming co-stars in a recent interview with For The Win.
“What I thought Denzel’s charisma would be was magnified by about tenfold,” Mescal explained of Washington. “Which sounds like it shouldn’t be a surprise, but when you’re confronted with it, it’s a pretty staggering, incredible thing to be stood across from.”
Mescal wasn’t short of compliments for Pascal, either. “He’s an extraordinary talent, and he wears it so lightly. He’s just a wonderful person… it’s wonderful to be in his company, and I think he’s extraordinary in the film.”
If it seems like too much charisma one set, it’s possible that’s the case.
“It’s a lot for someone to try and absorb, yeah,” Mescal said with a smile.
Gladiator II is in theaters nationwide November 22.
The Gladiator II star knows that expectations can be a good thing.
Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator is widely regarded as a nearly perfect film. Russell Crowe’s turn as Maximus was a career defining moment, and Joaquin Phoenix was phenomenal as the utterly unhinged and ambitious Commodus.
Twenty-four years later, Scott is ready for the movie’s sequel to hit theaters. Gladiator II releases on Friday, November 22, bringing the audience back into the world of ancient Rome, the Colosseum, and emperors. Paul Mescal takes over in the lead role, and the charismatic actor knows that viewers might have reservations about touching the franchise again.
“I weirdly see the reservations as a positive thing, because it means that the film has a legacy,” Mescal said in a recent interview with For The Win. “I’m biased, but I think from what we’ve experienced from the first kind of reviews is that people who did go in with a kind of reservation, a lot of those people were brave enough to say, ‘Hey, I went in with these reservations,’ but the film has has really, really worked on them.”
With a “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it appears as though the sequel is connecting with fans. With high-octane action and outstanding performances from Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal, it’s easy to see why. Still, Mescal wants fans to still keep the skepticism going into the movie.
“So anybody who has reservations, hold on to them, do whatever, but I can hopefully assure you that within the first three or four minutes of the film that you’ll be put at ease.”
Actor Pedro Pascal took his new fake feud with fellow actor Kieran Culkin during Monday night’s Emmys to a new level.
After Culkin took a playful dig at Pascal after beating him at the Golden Globes earlier this month for his performance on Succession, Pascal got one back at Culkin during the Emmys ceremony.
Pascal, wearing a brace for a shoulder injury, joked that his Golden Globes competitor “beat the [expletive]” out of him, which is why he was injured.
The camera cut to Culkin giving a very serious look at the camera, fully leaning into the gag. The whole crowd got a huge kick out of it.
This was a very funny way for Pascal to pay Culkin back for a gag with a gag, and we hope this newfound hilarity inspires these two to collaborate on a project sometime in the future.
We hope Pascal heals up soon, and we hope Culkin starts plotting his awards show rebuttal to this awards show rebuttal.
Pedro Pascal was just minding his business when Kieran Culkin said absolutely not.
The Golden Globes produced many “what just happened?” moments, but none more highly underrated than Kieran Culkin taking a playful jab at Pedro Pascal.
However, Kieran Culkin wasn’t going to be upstaged by any of that because when he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in Succession, he was ready with the jokes.
His acceptance speech was already off the rails when he told the audience he just burped and had indigestion, but then when he dove into how he arrived at that moment, he unleashed an old-school troll job on Pedro Pascal.
Looking for a new reaction video to remark that you’re silently judging someone? Or just enjoying a sandwich?
Move over, Grogu sipping soup. The Baby Yoda meme has been replaced by his Mandalorian co-star, Pedro Pascal, silently enjoying a sandwich.
Why is it so perfect? Besides the fact that Pedro Pascal memes have been made out of A LOT of things he’s done lately, maybe it’s because he’s slowly chewing, contemplating something, or holding the sandwich with three fingers. Or all of that.
Either way, it’s a meme that’s exploding everywhere, on TikTok and Twitter and everything in between. Here’s a roundup of some of the best ones we’ve seen:
Pedro Pascal eating hot wings. What else could you ask for?
There’s arguably no actor hotter than Pedro Pascal right now, and he put it to the test on Thursday morning with a visit to the wildly popular Hot Ones show to eat some wings. Pascal, who is the lead in both Disney+’s The Mandalorian and HBO’s The Last of Us, has completely taken over the internet with his charm, interviews and decidedly handsome good looks.
If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of the show, host Sean Evans interviews stars as they eat a series of increasingly spicy chicken wings. Some of the absolute best memes — including Paul Rudd’s iconic “Hey, look at us,” moment — came from Hot Ones.
“Thank you for having me,” Pascal said to open the show. “I’m so glad for the opportunity to finally be taken seriously.”
It was a perfect episode with a perfect guest, and you should all watch it immediately.
He gave the world so much more content to create future TikTok edits with, asked to take a bite out of someone’s arm to handle the heat and said Grogu (Baby Yoda) kept stealing his scenes by being so dang cute.
The Mandalorian is in one of the most interesting spots of the Star Wars timeline
As an avid Star Wars fan, I must admit that the saga can get extremely confusing at times.
The continuity is filled with so many different characters and different timelines. It’s easy to get things mixed up here and there — especially when it comes to actually placing the moments we’re all watching together on an actual canonical timeline.
All of what I just said can be used to describe how most people feel about The Mandalorian at this point. Everyone loves the show, but no one is exactly sure *when* it is in the Star Wars timeline.
Yes, we know what’s going on in the series (and if you don’t here’s a quick catch-up). And we also generally know when it takes place. But specifically? Not really. We’re not even sure if Jon Favreau — the show’s creator — actually knows. He’s just telling us as he goes along.
The general answer for some would be probably, with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens rocket launching the galaxy back for five movies (so far), plenty of television shows (so far) and little doodads like that Baby Yoda/Studio Ghibli collab.
The over-saturation that has plagued the Marvel Cinematic Universe of late seems to be creeping itself into the Skywalker saga, with last year’s The Book of Boba Fett basically an honorary season of The Mandalorian that some folks seemed to accidentally skip over.
If you’re lost, all hell broke loose for Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin (er, the Mandalorian) when he took his helmet off to say goodbye to Baby Yoda (…Grogu) at the end of The Mandalorian‘s second season.
The challenge for The Mandalorian going forward might also be its appeal.
Disney/Lucasfilm
We’re going to get a loosely threaded grand narrative, as Djarin has to go find a magic bath on his ransacked home planet to get back in good graces with his people. However, there’s now also space pirates chasing after him for something that happens in season three’s first episode. Taika Waititi’s IG-11 robot might not be dead. Little Babu Friks and Salacious B. Crumbs show up. Star Wars Carl Weathers is still doing Star Wars Carl Weathers things. Apparently Star Wars has Lake Placid-sized crocodile turtles now, too.
The unnecessary business of plot threads’ past and the delightful dorkiness of serialized Star Wars storytelling will come to blows with this latest Mandalorian season, and which side of this approach wins out will be critical to whatever future these live-action television shows have.
Disney will undoubtedly want the Lucasfilm fanfare back in theaters sooner than later, and with so many television shows in development, it begs the question: will people ever tire of watching this at home?
The easiest remedy is letting The Mandalorian be itself and keep grander narratives on the back burner, which thankfully happens in spurts during the third season’s first go-around.
Disney/Lucasfilm
If you’ve watched this latest episode, then you know that Mando and Baby Yoda have the general goal this season to get to the remnants of Mandalore and save Mando’s helmet-removing butt by washing him in their holy pools. This, apparently, is the way for redemption. It’s all a little extra, but then again, if the helmet removal is that big of a deal, then so be it.
The new wrinkle looks to be space pirates, led by the plant-based pirate king Gorian Shard. Shard looks like if someone crossed Boss Nass from The Phantom Menace with Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh. Shard is irate with Mando now that he’s killed a bunch of his space pirates in both a confrontation on Nevarro City (where Weathers’ Greef Karga now runs the show) and in a space battle by Shard’s big pirate ship.
So keep a tab on the most evil pirate fern in the galaxy for later in the season.
Also, we get to meet the disembodied remains of IG-11, who died in The Mandalorian‘s first season. The robot’s resurrection is now a side quest for Djarin and Grogu as they try to find all the little Babu Friks in Nevarro City some sort of memory processor thingamajig so that the little aliens can fix him to help Mando with the main mission on Mandalore (say that five times fast). Note: apparently, these little Babu Friks (Anzellans) aren’t the Babu Frik from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. As you were.
Disney/Lucasfilm
As the episode closes, we also get a side detour to where Bo-Katan is hanging out at her big Mandalorian castle. If you’ll recall from the show’s second season, Bo-Katan was the leader of a rogue group of Mandalorians that Djarin knew from back in the day. They allow themselves to take the helmet off, which seems very logical and Djarin should’ve just teamed up with them so he could take his helmet off, too, but whatever.
In season three’s first 30 minutes, we cover a lot of ground. Those absolutely befuddled as to what’s going on will have to take a few hops back on the Star Wars game board to The Book of Boba Fett to update yourself on what’s going on. For those “in the know,” you know what you came for.
While the dialogue remains a bit stilted and the grander stakes a bit low on tread, watching Baby Yoda hug a Babu Frik and seeing Djarin zip around in his space cruiser and blast space pirates into asteroids to Ludwig Göransson’s techno-thumping score remain the kind of joys that make this show worth coming back to.
At least one episode in, The Mandalorian is doing everything it used to do. It’s become the safest bet for Lucasfilm in the Disney era, but one wonders if safety will keep this show from ever really taking some risks. If The Mandalorian is tasty Star Wars comfort food, then that’s what it should be. It just begs the question of when folks will get full on frog eggs and want more franchise divergence like Star Wars: The Last Jedi or Andor.
For now, fun adventures with Djarin and Baby Yoda will certainly scratch the itch. The more spirited and disconnected these episodes are, the better.
hz
