How Gladiator paved the way for digital resurrection

As Gladiator II heads to cinemas, fans across the world are revisiting Ridley Scott’s imperious original.

The story follows betrayed Roman General Maximus (Russell Crowe) as he finds himself in slavery, forging a plan to become a gladiator in order to get revenge for the murder of his family. It’s a film remembered for great spectacle, memorable moments, and one of the first instances of visual effects bringing an actor ‘back to life’ on screen. As it turns out, it was a sequence of events that would influence cinema for years to come.

Among Gladiator’s star-studded cast was Oliver Reed, an icon of British film who found success in the 1960s and 70s thanks to films like Oliver!, The Three Musketeers and Tommy. Now in his early 60s, he was the perfect choice for Antonius Proximo, a tough gladiator trainer who becomes a mentor of Maximus in his quest for revenge.

Unfortunately, Reed would not finish his performance as intended. In May 1999, during a break from filming, Reed suffered a heart attack and died. While he had filmed the bulk of his scenes as Proximo, certain key moments remained unfinished, including the character’s fate.

Fans of the film will remember Gladiator’s final scene, in which fellow gladiator Juba (Djimon Hounsou), now free, buries figures of Maximus and his family and promises to see him again. In one of the script’s earlier versions, it was Reed’s Proximo that was meant to bury a wooden sword, having survived the events of the film.

The actor’s death meant revising that ending, having Proximo and his men sacrifice themselves to help Maximus escape an attack from Emperor Commodus’ (Joaquin Phoenix) soldiers.

The solution was a mixture of special effects, editing, and body doubles to craft an ending where Proximo was convinced to help Maximus, an offered one final act of heroism before his murder by the soldiers. Previous closeups were remastered with different lighting to give the appearance of a new location, while in the final moment between the character and Maximus, where Proximo hands him the keys to escape, Reed face was put on to the body of a double.

Russell Crowe added to the collaboration, ad-libbing the line “Proximo, are you in danger of becoming a good man?” Proximo’s response, a cynical “Ha!” before leaving, was taken from an earlier shot. It was another ad-lib that was Proximo's final line, in a scene at the colosseum, Proximo tells Maximus “we mortals are but shadows and dust”.

In a previous take, Reed took it upon himself to repeat the line “shadows and dust” mournfully, looking to the heavens. That delivery was digitally deposited into Proximo’s final scene, awaiting his execution in his chambers.

“By moving it, it felt like a callback, like it was actually a part of the fabric of the storytelling” said executive producer Walter F Parkes in the 2005 documentary “Strength and Honour: Creating The World of Gladiator”, “but in fact, it was just patched together”.

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It's a remarkable feat of creativity, where old and new school methods of filmmaking combine to make a sequence that stands up to this day.

According to visual effects supervisor John Nelson one of the biggest and most unexpected obstacles was facial hair. The scenes that worked with the ending had been from earlier in the film, before Proximo shaved back his beard to look more presentable in the Coliseum. “Because his beard was different, we actually changed the facial hair” recalls Nelson, with editor Pietro Scalia adding “we had to shave his beard digitally!

The rest, as they say, is history. Gladiator won five awards at the 73rd Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects for Nelson and his team. So convincing was the completion of Reed’s performance, that he was posthumously nominated for a BAFTA Award, the only nomination of his career.

Gladiator is considered one of the most popular films ever, made, with Reed’s final screen performance often touted as his best. Furthermore, his ‘digital resurrection’ would reveal what was possible with the growing advancements in computer effects.

The tragic death of Paul Walker midway through filming 2017's Furious 7 meant that similar techniques were incorporated, using previous takes, body doubles, and facial mapping to complete his final performance. Furthermore, it offered new possibilities to have characters played by actors who have died brought back as the audience recognises them.

In the Star Wars Universe, both Peter Cushing’s Moff Tarkin and Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia were given a final bow in a galaxy far, far away, while Harold Ramis was brought back for one last Ghostbusting adventure in 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. In all cases, the same principles applied, bringing them back thanks to a combination of previous footage, doubles, and facial mapping.

Of course, technology has moved on, but even modern effects workers have a lot of praise for what was achieved with Reed’s performance.

YouTube Channel The Corridor Crew, which takes current film industry professionals and records their reactions to infamous movie moments, asked Wren Weichman, Clinton Jones and Niko Pueringer to view famous digitally resurrected actors in film. While many received cries of derision, Gladiator was celebrated for lasting the test of time.

Jones described it as “basically it’s just a collage – cutting out of one shot, sticking into the other, and doing a little colour change”, “video photoshop” Weichman added. Despite the simplicity of the techniques compared to today, Jones described the digital scenes as “flawless”. “The simplest way to do it is the most effective” he says of the 20-year-old sequences.

Two decades on, the performance of Reed in Gladiator is remembered for its charisma and impact on the story, with visual effects helping round out that arc. We will never know what a fully realised performance would have offered, but the acting great left enough on film to ensure Proximo echoes in eternity.

Gladiator II premieres in cinemas on Friday, 15 November. Gladiator is available to watch on ITVX.