Tell about Gladiator ?

All the scenes involving slavery, desert travel, and gladiatorial combat training were shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco, which has also been used for scenes in Lawrence of Arabia, The Living Daylights, The Last Temptation of Christ, the Mummy, and Game of Thrones.

Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk, was originally cast to play Tigris of Gaul, but he was replaced during production by Sven-Ole Thorsen.

Oliver Reed, who played Proximo, went on record to say that his main motivation for taking the part of Proximo was because he fancied a “free trip to London to see a couple of shows.”

During filming, Reed and Crowe didn’t get along, and at one point, Reed even challenged Crowe to a fight. Now that would have been entertaining.

Reed died of a heart attack before Gladiator had finished filming. Reed’s character arc was rewritten, and Scott used CGI to work around his death, digitally scanning his face onto an extra in order to finish the movie. The additional special effects cost US $3.2 million for two minutes of footage. Visual effects supervisor John Nelson said, “What we did was small compared to our other tasks on the film. What Oliver did was much greater. All we did was help him finish it.” The film is dedicated to the memory of Oliver Reed.

Not all gladiators were brought to the arena in chains. While most early combatants were conquered peoples and slaves who had committed crimes, grave inscriptions show that by the 1st century A.D. the demographics had started to change

Lured by the thrill of battle and the roar of the crowds, scores of free men began voluntarily signing contracts with gladiator schools in the hope of winning glory and prize money.

These freelance warriors were often desperate men or ex-soldiers skilled in fighting, but some were upper-class patricians, knights and even senators eager to demonstrate their warrior pedigree.

Many ancient chroniclers described the Roman games as an import from the Etruscans, but most historians now argue that gladiator fights got their start as a blood rite staged at the funerals of wealthy nobles.

When distinguished aristocrats died, their families would hold graveside bouts between slaves or condemned prisoners as a kind of macabre eulogy for the virtues the person had demonstrated in life.

According to the Roman writers Tertullian and Festus, since the Romans believed that human blood helped purify the deceased person’s soul, these contests may have also acted as a crude substitute for human sacrifice.

The funeral games later increased in scope during the reign of Julius Caesar, who staged bouts between hundreds of gladiators in honor of his deceased father and daughter.

The spectacles proved hugely popular, and by the end of the 1st century B.C., government officials began hosting state-funded games as a way of currying favor with the masses.

Hollywood movies and television shows often depict gladiatorial bouts as a bloody free-for-all, but most fights operated under fairly strict rules and regulations.

Contests were typically single combat between two men of similar size and experience.

Referees oversaw the action, and probably stopped the fight as soon as one of the participants was seriously wounded. A match could even end in a stalemate if the crowd became bored by a long and drawn out battle, and in rare cases, both warriors were allowed to leave the arena with honor if they had put on an exciting show for the crowd.

Since gladiators were expensive to house, feed and train, their promoters were loath to see them needlessly killed.

Trainers may have taught their fighters to wound, not kill, and the combatants may have taken it upon themselves to avoid seriously hurting their brothers-in-arms.

Nevertheless, the life of a gladiator was usually brutal and short. Most only lived to their mid-20s, and historians have estimated that somewhere between one in five or one in 10 bouts left one of its participants dead.

If a gladiator was seriously wounded or threw down his weapon in defeat, his fate was left in the hands of the spectators.

In contests held at the Colosseum, the emperor had the final say in whether the felled warrior lived or died, but rulers and fight organizers often let the people make the decision.

Paintings and films often show the throngs giving a “thumbs down” gesture when they wanted a disgraced gladiator to be finished off, but this may not be accurate.

“Gladiator” is the story of Maximus Decimus Meridius, a loyal general who is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father and usurps the throne.

Reduced to a mere slave, Maximus fights his way up through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena in order to avenge his family and empero

Gladiator grossed $457.6 million worldwide and won Best Picture, Best Actor for Crowe, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound Mixing.