10 Movie Sequels That Were Basically The Same Movie
2. Gladiator II
Nobody should've expected Gladiator II to be a left-field, boundary-pushing sequel to Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning original epic, because when a studio spends around $300 million on a movie, they generally want as safe and reliable a product as possible.
And Gladiator II, while entertaining, is certainly a relatively unambitious mirror of the first film, enough that some critics even called it a glorified remake posing as a sequel.
Maximus' (Russell Crowe) son Lucius (Paul Mescal) goes through an incredibly similar Hero's Journey to his father - losing his wife, swearing revenge against Rome, being enslaved and sent to fight as a gladiator, and eventually rising up to kill the tyrant who subjugated him.
The only substantial difference is that Lucius actually survives at the end, just in case the planned Gladiator III actually happens.
Couple the achingly familiar plot with the many lines of dialogue and shots that fawningly invoke the original, and this is a sequel that gets dangerously close to echoing its predecessor too much.