The action returns to the Colosseum in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 as Lucius Verus (Paul Mescal) takes his place in the brutal arena, but the director tells Total Film that returning to the setting was a key factor in deciding whether to remake his Oscar-winning epic.

“You go through all the questions,” Scott tells Total Film in our new issue, out Thursday, September 12, which has the Penguin on the cover. “Can I go back to Rome? Can I go back to the Colosseum? Because that’s what we did with Russell (Crowe). And the answer is you’d better be in the Colosseum because it’s called Gladiator. I don’t know how you manage that without going back to the Colosseum, otherwise there’s no point.”