"I don't think Romans knew what a shark was" A top historian has dismissed the upcoming Gladiator II as “total Hollywood bullshit”. Read More: 20 unmissable movies coming out in 2024 A feature by The Hollywood Reporter published today (October 30) makes a bid to separate the historical accuracies of the upcoming epic from its wilder sequences – like the use of sharks in a flooded Colosseum, which had already garnered praise (and disbelief) from viewers upon its reveal in the film’s trailer . Dr.
Shadi Bartsch, a classics professor at the University of Chicago – and author of several books about ancient Rome – called it “total Hollywood bullshit.” “I don’t think Romans knew what a shark was,” she said, although adding that naval battles were held in the arena. Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal in ‘Gladiator II’ – CREDIT: Paramount On the use of rhinos in the Colosseum, Bartsch notes that a poem was once written in 80 A.
D. “about a rhinoceros tossing a bull up to the sky”, although not of the same breed as the one in the film, which is directed by Ridley Scott . There’s also no evidence that gladiators rode rhinos, she clarified.
Another Gladiator II scene shows a Roman noble sipping tea in a cafe while reading the newspaper – which, as The Hollywood Reporter noted, would be an anachronism as the printing press would not be invented until 1,200 years later. “They did have daily news — Acta Diuma — but it was carved and placed at certain loca.
