Russell Crowe confesses he felt initial script of Gladiator was 'so bad'

The Gladiator star Russell Crowe revealed during an interview that he joined the historical epic based on what it could become, and not by what it was initially on paper. On Wednesday, the Oscar-winning actor joined host Jimmy Fallon in his virtual The Tonight Show and recalled the initial script of 2000 released classic to be “so bad.” “Gladiator was a unique experience because the script that they had was so bad — it was just so bad,” The Hollywood Reporter quoted Crowe as saying to Fallon. “The producer did not know I was able to already get a copy, but the thing he said was, ‘I don’t want to send you the document we have because you won’t respond to it. But I want to encourage you to have a meeting with (director) Ridley Scott. And here’s the thing I want you to think about: It’s 180 AD. You’re a Roman general. And you’re being directed by Ridley Scott,” the veteran actor added. A Beautiful Mind actor further agreed to the meeting and said he was blown away by Scott, who laid out his vision for the film. “We just clicked on that first meeting. There was definitely a little bit of a risk involved with it at the time,” Crowe added. [caption id=“attachment_8529091” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  A still from Gladiator. Twitter/@oscarsworldcup[/caption] Not having much confidence in the picture on day one of production, Crowe said that by the time the film wrapped, he knew they had done something special. “The collective energy of that cast was fantastic,” he told Fallon. In hindsight, the action drama won the Best Picture and Best Actor award at the Oscars and went on to make $460 million at the box office worldwide. Gladiator featured Crowe as Maximus, a General in the Roman army, who is betrayed by the Emperor and left for dead while his family is brutally murdered. He is eventually forced to become a gladiator after being captured by slave traders, who lead him back to Rome to fight as a gladiator while he plots his revenge against the Emperor who betrayed him. (With inputs from Asian News International)