20 Things You Didn’t Know About Gladiator
6. Oliver Reed Was Nearly Recast After His Death
The original climax to the movie would have seen Maximus forced to fight Proximo in the Colosseum, friend against friend, a last little twist of the knife from Commodus. The final scene would have seen Proximo himself bury those figurines in the sand where Maximus had died.
However, during a break from shooting three weeks prior to the end of filming, Oliver Reed visited a bar where he was persuaded to abandon his self-imposed moratorium on booze and enter a drinking competition. Reed being Reed, he was doing rather well when he suffered a heart attack, and tragically passed away.
As Proximo was considered a key character, the movie's insurance had a provision that could have allowed them the financial cushion to reshoot all of Reed's scenes with a new actor, the better to stay on track. This was no small thing - the estimated cost of such a reshoot was in the region of $25 million.
However, Gladiator's shoot had been hard going for cast and crew alike, and the prospect of extending it for any reason didn't appeal. More than that, Scott simply didn't want to replace Reed in the film. Most of his scenes were in the bag, and he'd hired him for a reason, which the legendary actor had more than delivered on.
The decision was made: they would tweak the ending instead. Juba would entrust the figurines to the dirt of the Colosseum; a body double and some sneaky CG shenanigans would provide Proximo's character arc with a graceful landing.