Crowe won a Best Actor Oscar for playing the character of Maximus, who dies at the end of the 2000 original Russell Crowe doesn't return to the Colosseum in the long anticipated sequel to Gladiator — but it wasn't for a lack of trying.

Ridley Scott's Gladiator turned Russell Crowe into a next-level star. Their four subsequent movies turned him back into a character actor.

Gladiator II' will hit theaters 24 years after the first film came out (2000) and won five Oscars the following year.