New Look at Vengeful Warrior Paul Mescal

Gladiator II is headed to theaters, where Paul Mescal will battle in the ancient Colosseum as a vengeful gladiator. The latest action-packed trailer for Ridley Scott’s sequel dropped on Monday.

Mescal plays a grown-up Lucius Verus II, a nephew to emperor Commodus from the original film, played by Joaquin Phoenix. After being forced into slavery, Lucius returns to Rome to battle not as a ruler, but as a gladiator out for revenge and power over two decades after the original Gladiator epic.

“You have something in you, rage. Never let it go,” Macrinus, a wealthy power broker and arms dealer played by Denzel Washington, tells Lucius as he brings him into his stable of gladiators for battle in the fighting ring.

But Lucius also has ambitions for power and revenge, as he works his way up the ranks of gladiatorial fighters. “Rome has taken everything from me. But I will have my vengeance,” he tells a wary Macrinus at one point in the trailer after insisting he wants the head of Roman General Marcus Acacius, played by Pedro Pascal, who earlier forced him into slavery.

“I don’t fight for power. I fight to free Rome from men like them,” Lucius eventually declares as Macrinus, Marcus Acacius and others who rule Rome with an iron fist look on from a giant Coliseum set built in Malta.

Gladiator II set for a tentpole release by Paramount Pictures at Thanksgiving also comes as director Scott is reportedly working on ideas for a Gladiator 3 down the road.

The first trailer racked up 215 million global cross-platform views in just a few days.

Gladiator II opens Nov. 22 and arrives over 20 years after Scott’s Gladiator, which won five Oscars, including best picture and best actor for Russell Crowe. Joseph Quinn and Connie Nielsen also star in the new film.