The first trailer for “Gladiator 2” launched yesterday, and whilst there’s plenty of love for the visuals, cast and filmmaking quality, there’s also been a very strong pushback over some marketing decisions.
With over 12.5 million YouTube views via the official Paramount Pictures channel, the film has racked up 107,000 likes and 163,000 dislikes as of the time of writing – effectively a 40/60 split of like/dislikes.
Despite the ancient Rome setting, the trailer used Jay Z and Kanye West’s rap song “No Church in the Wild” and that seems to be the source of much of the backlash going by the comments.
One comment receiving over 20,000 likes says: “The producers: We got Denzel, let’s throw a rap song in there to emphasize the Roman Empire.” Others have been baffled about why it didn’t use any of Hans Zimmer’s iconic score from the first film.
There are also negative comments are with the overall project itself, wondering why does it need a sequel, while a few have complained about the trailer’s three-minute length.
After keeping the film under wraps for so long, this first foot forward appears to have stumbled a bit – here’s hoping Paramount can right the ship with the next preview.
The film itself opens November 22nd, say and date with the long-awaited “Wicked” musical adaptation with ‘Glicked’ being the Barbenheimer-esque nickname that star Paul Mescal has coined for the date in an interview with ET Online.