Paul Mescal’s ‘Gladiator musical’ divides SNL fans over whether film should have been like ‘Joker 2’

Gladiator II star Paul Mescal has already secured some viral promo for the follow-up to the classic 2000 Ridley Scott film in the form of recreating a classic X Factor meme during the press junket but now the actor has taken on the hype around Wicked by turning the sequel into a musical for Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Move out of the way, ‘Barbenheimer’, it’s time for… ‘Glicked’?

Rebranded as “Gladiator Twosical”, the almost four-minute-long trailer includes an opening number called “No Place Like Rome” and a ‘quote’ from Scott saying he was “not told about this”.

It also boasts “an extra 50 minutes of songs” from Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (including a rap battle featuring some ‘flossing) and a song with the line “stabbing my way to freedom”.

And to finish it off, Mescal flies out of the coliseum on a broomstick – brilliant.

In fact, Twitter/X users have said it’s better than the original, and that they would pay to see the full version:

Others tipped Mescal as the perfect performer for a live-action version of Hercules, which is currently in the works:

However musical films have been hit-and-miss in recent months, as while the transfer of the hit stage show Wicked to the silver screen has been a massive success (to the tune of $114 million in box office sales in the US and Canada in its opening weekend), the song-infused sequel to the 2019 film Joker – starring Lady Gaga - flopped when it was released earlier this year.

Even one of the film’s actors, comedian Tim Dillon, has come out and said Folie à Deux was the “worst film ever made”.

So, while many have expressed support for a singsong take on Roman battles, others have requested that they don’t give Scott any ideas.

Either way, we are very much entertained by this skit – thanks, Paul.

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