Russell Crowe was told 'out of touch' Gladiator would be a flop

Russell Crowe was warned that his historical epic Gladiator would be a flop because it was "out of touch".

The 56-year-old actor reflected on making Ridley Scott's critically-acclaimed 2000 movie to celebrate its 20th anniversary and revealed that he was told once he'd finished shooting that the film was seen to be old-fashioned.

"Most people had already sort of written it off from a business point of view. They didn’t know anything about it," he told Variety. "What they heard was that it was a 'sword and sandal' epic, you know, the cliche that they used to call things like that. They thought that was such an out-of-touch step to make."

He recalled having a candid conversation with a friend in Hollywood who then expressed concern that the big-budget blockbuster was going to fail at the box office.

"I was talking to him about how difficult the shoot had been because just being honest, it was tricky and it was exhausting and it took everything I had. So I was discussing it in those terms, and he took that as a negative," Crowe explained, noting that he was told that at least he had the critically-acclaimed L.A. Confidential to fall back on.

He continued: "And I went out of that meeting and talked about it with my agent, I was like, 'Is that what people really think?' And he goes, 'Well, yep.'"

Crowe went on to win the Best Actor Oscar in 2001 for his performance as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, and the historical epic also scooped the Academy Award for Best Picture.