The Gladiator II movie is shaping up to be another box office bomb, following Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, House of Gucci, and The Last Duel. Scott hasn’t had a major hit in nearly a decade, with his last big success being 2015’s The Martian.
Gladiator II has a reported mammoth budget of $350 million, and just as I said, looks to be betting buried by the storm of Thanksgiving and Christmas releases which includes Wicked, Moana 2, and this week sees the release of Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King (Red One is also a very good Xmas movie).
If you read the trades or follow box office shill accounts on X, you’d think Gladiator II is a massive success. The post-Thanksgiving weekend box office has been strong for the industry, a period that’s typically slow (Deadline even blames women shopping for the drop—lol). However, the trades have been piggybacking off the success of Wicked and Moana 2, which are currently driving the industry, and lumping Gladiator II into their coverage to make it look better. That said, in its latest box office article, Deadline doesn’t mention Gladiator II except to report the numbers where—gulp—Kraven is even beating it this weekend.
Let’s look at the numbers
As of this weekend, Gladiator II, in its fourth weekend, has yet to hit $400 million. Keep in mind—its budget is $350 million. More than half of that revenue goes to theaters (roughly half to North American theaters and even more internationally). Its break-even point? Reportedly as high as $750 million. And that’s just to break even! The film is nowhere close to reaching that number.
Gladiator II is a big bust
Domestically, Gladiator II is at $145.9M. The foreign gross is at $252.6M. The worldwide gross is at $398.5M.
I’m guessing the Gladiator II box office has completely stalled. The best case scenario for Gladiator II is a domestic finish of $200 million, so it’s looking like — what? $500M worldwide? Lucky to hit $600M at best? The lowest break even estimate is $625M. That’s a success?
Gladiator vs Gladiator II
Or how about comparing Gladiator II to the first one, which was released 25 years ago? You have to factor in inflation.
In today’s dollar, the first Gladiator opened to nearly $64 million! It finished with a domestic run of $344 million!! And worldwide, a gross of $825M!!!
Please sell me how Gladiator II is a success.
Gladiator II box current office numbers:
- Domestic (36.6%): $145,935,658
- International (63.4%): $252,600,000
- Worldwide: $398,535,658
Weekend:
- Nov 22-24: $55,034,715
- Nov 29-Dec 1: $31,030,194
- Dec 6-8: $12,573,063
- Dec 13-15: $7,801,000
