Gladiator

Gladiator (2000) Director: Ridley Scott. Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed.

This Oscar-winning epic’s exhilarating combat scenes, in which Maximus (Russell Crowe) fights for his life, were shot in a replica of the Roman Colosseum created by production designer Arthur Max and built at Fort Ricasoli, in spring 1999.

Explaining how the Gladiator team enlarged the Malta Colosseum set to such stunning effect on screen, with the aid of computer-generated imagery, Arhtur Max told Variety in 2001: "We created a sense of sheer size by combining big, real sets, where we contained the live-action of the story, and topping off those sets with computer extensions."

In all, Gladiator was based on Malta for three months, and also shot in that time was the nighttime scene near the climax of the film, when Maximus escapes from the gladiators’ quarters and emerges beneath a viaduct, only to find that he has walked into an ambush. The location used is at Couvre Port, outside Vittoriosa.

Malta Movie Trivia: Ridley Scott had hoped to return to Malta with Russell Crowe and Gladiator producer Branko Lustig in 2003-04 to make Tripoli, a film about a real-life US Navy agent, William Eaton, who fought to overthrow the government in what is now Libya in 1804-05. The plan was put on hold, however, as Scott moved on to other projects, including Matchstick Men and a new epic about the Crusades. Grand Harbour was to have doubled for Tripoli scenes set in Tripoli and parts of Tunisia, and Fort St Elmo would have doubled for Tunis.