Paramount ended their CinemaCon 2024 with Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II. 

According to Deadline, “Raised stakes here: Rhinos, man-eating monkeys, battling boats in the Colosseum and a very quotable, wise, fierce Roman statesman played by Denzel Washington — he’s not an Emperor.”

“First shot in the trailer is a glimpse of hands sifting through rice, and echo of the famous shot of Maximus’ hand skimming over the top of a waving field of wheat in the original film. Says Paul Mescal’s son of Russell Crowe’s late Maximus in a voiceover, “I remember the days that a slave could take revenge on the emperor, that a slave found justice in the arena.”

“Can you hear that crowd?” says Washington, “The greatest temple that Rome ever built was the Colosseum..this is what they believe in…power.”

The son of Maximus, like his father, is a slave who is more than his worth in the arena, leading a rebellion. Pedro Pascal plays a revered right-hand Roman military leader to the Emperor, but also a fierce fighter in the arena. The battle goes beyond the Colosseum in large-scale epic fights outside of stone edifices — big skirmishes that only Scott can pull off. Connie Nielsen is back, and we see her bestowing Maximus’ ring to his son.

“The only truth in Rome is the law of the strongest,” booms Washington — who by the way doesn’t seem as despicable as Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor from the first film; he’s seen in what appears several moments in the trailer dispensing advice to Mescal.

The sequel hits theaters on November 22.