The first look at Gladiator II, the long-awaited action sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning epic, has arrived, delivering vast set pieces and bloody Colosseum and waterfront battles.

The extended three-minute trailer, which dropped on Wednesday (AEST), shows 28-year-old Irish actor Paul Mescal as Lucius.

The now-grown son of Maximus (played by Russell Crowe in the original) returns as a prisoner to Rome, to come up against Chilean-US star Pedro Pascal, 49, as the general Marcus Acacius, who demolished Lucius’ homeland.

It also fulfils one of Scott’s biggest dreams if he made a sequel – featuring a charging rhino inside the Colosseum.

The original Gladiator took home five Academy awards (including best actor for Crowe). But producer Douglas Wick told comicbook.com in 2020 that he still had one regret.

“There are issues that were really more about cost … which is, for example, Ridley wanted a rhino in the arena. And, when we talked to the animal trainers, they said, ‘Well, they’re great to work with, but once you start it, you can’t stop it.’

“Then we priced a CG [computer graphics] rhino and it was just too expensive. So I would say that was one of the regrets, we couldn’t give Ridley a CG rhino.

“It’s a running joke, that if we ever do a sequel, Ridley gets his rhino,” said Wick, who co-produced the sequel alongside Scott.

This time around, Scott gets his bloody-horned rhino, ridden by a soldier who charges Lucius.

But the sequel also reportedly blew the budget after initially being costed $US165 million ($245 million). In February sources told The Hollywood Reporter that figure “ballooned to something closer to $US310 million”, although Paramount maintained the net cost of the 49-day shoot was more like $US250 million.

Either way, last year’s US actors’ and writers’ strikes delayed location shoots, including in Malta where Scott built a replica Colosseum set.

Filming was also paused in June last year after six crew members were injured on set in Morocco.

“While filming a planned stunt sequence on the set of the ‘Gladiator’ sequel, an accident occurred during which several crew members experienced non-life-threatening injuries,” a spokesperson for Paramount Pictures said at the time.

For the record, Scott’s budget for the original in 2000 was $US103 million and it grossed $US465 million at the global box office.

‘Hip hop music in the trailer’

Legendary composer Hans Zimmer (and Lisa Gerrard) wrote the haunting soundtrack for the original Gladiator, and it’s often considered a perfect score for this film.

Zimmer, 66, is respected globally for his work on The Lion King, The Dark Knight, the Dune franchise and The Da Vinci Code.

When fans heard the sequel’s theme, No Church in the Wild by Kanye “Ye” West and Jay-Z, it was met with a heavy heart on social media.

“Having a rap song in the trailer is blasphemy when the soundtrack for the first movie is one of the most epic pieces of music ever,” wrote one disgruntled fan on X.

“The rap song in GII – seriously? The spell was broken,” wrote another.

And this: “Oh no, hip hop music in the trailer is a bad sign”, with another joking about “a rap song for a movie set in 105BC”.

‘Slightly uncomfortable’

Crowe, who appears for two seconds in the trailer to set up the storyline, is not in the sequel – for obvious reasons.

Before his first US tour with his band Indoor Garden Party last month, the 60-year-old Australian-NZ star told US radio host Kyle Meredith that he was “slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one”.

“Of course, [my character is] dead and I have no say in what gets done,” he said.

“A couple of the things I’ve heard, I’m like, ‘No, no, no, that’s not in the moral journey of that particular character’. But I can’t say anything, it’s not my place … I’m six foot under.”