7. Ridley Scott Wanted Russell Crowe To Fight A Rhino
At one point in the production it seems that Ridley Scott thought that having Maximus fight another wave of combatants in the gladiatorial arena wasn't impressive enough to satisfy audiences. What could he bring on to up the ante considerably more? While in the end as we've all seen he settled for Bengal tigers, at one point he seriously considered pitting the hero against a full grown rhinoceros. Having looked into the practicalities of using a real rhino for some shots, then weighed up the options of using animatronics for the close ups of the head and mixing this with computer graphics, Scott realised that the costs of such a set-piece were prohibitive and dropped the idea completely. Would it have worked? Maybe, maybe not - as heroic and skilled a warrior as Maximus is, something tells us that the sight of him taking out an armoured beast like a rhino might have stretched plausibility beyond breaking point.
