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Forming a deep, V-shaped valley in England’s South Downs near Brighton, this dramatic landscape is used in Gladiator II as the scrubby, sunbaked outskirts of Rome where the fate of the empire is decided, with Ridley Scott filming there in June 2023 and returning for reshoots the following summer, a choice that echoes his use of English countryside in the original Gladiator and demonstrates how cinematic ‘movie magic’ can transform a temperate valley into the parched edges of the Eternal City. - Gregory James Wakeman