20 Things You Didn’t Know About Gladiator
11. They Genuinely Burned A Forest Down
Remember that opening battle scene in the Germanian woods? Well, it wasn’t just Crowe’s face that got marked up.
The scene was filmed in Bourne Woods in Surrey, a county in southern England. The area was already earmarked by the UK’s Royal Forestry Commission for deforestation - so Ridley Scott, sensing the collision of the fates, offered them his crew’s services to take care of it for them, an offer that the Commission were pleased to accept.
This cleared a big enough area to stage the battle they were looking for - and, afterwards, gave the Commission the idea to loan the woods out to future productions on a regular basis, as previously it had only been used to double as the Burmese jungle for racist seventies sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum.
Subsequent films that used the location thanks to Gladiator’s influence (and forced clearance) included Children Of Men, The Golden Compass, three Harry Potter movies, three MCU movies and Wonder Woman.