‘Gladiator’ Meets ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in HBO Max’s $497M Historical Epic

Published Jul 13, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Makuochi Echebiri is a News Writer for Collider. He has been interested in creative writing from as far back as high school, and he would consume pretty much anything that’s film or TV. However, his truest love lies in the presence of historical epics and thrillers.

Lured by the brilliance of Middle Earth from an early age both in print and on screen, his palate has since expanded to other realms including Westeros, Kattegat among others. He also possesses a great appetite for the stories that emanate from the vastness of space. Even though he is no Avenger.

Obsessed with storytelling and having works of his own that have yet to make it to print, he is content to use that ability to communicate to as many as are reachable. In his spare time, he looks out for avenues where he can aid people aside from his plans to reign over this earthly realm. Yes…you heard that first here.

One of the great beauties of entertainment in the modern age is the presence of variety. As we enjoy the wonders of Hollywood, esteemed filmmakers like James Cameron deliver back-to-back box office hits. From sci-fi to westerns, musicals, and epic horror tales, there is always a niche and genre for people to enjoy. One of the most celebrated genres in the industry, however, is the action-packed historical war epics. These sword-and-sandal features take us back to different times in human history, often bringing the circumstances of our forebears to life. Toss fantasy into the mix, and we get the greatest film trilogy of all time, Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

To this day, Jackson’s work with J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium is still held in high regard despite the improvement in technology and the industry at large. The Lord of the Rings films of the early 2000s made certain actors synonymous with the heroes in Tolkien’s tales. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better Gandalf than Sir Ian McKellen, or a better elf skilled with a bow like Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas of the Woodland Realm. However, with the conclusion of the trilogy with the release of The Return of the King in December 2003, these stars and their colleagues moved on to other projects, including one tale that helped shape Western civilization.

The ancient Greeks and their epic poems and tales are some of the most iconic stories ever told. It was the foundation upon which Troy, the 2004 adaptation of Homer’s The Iliad, was laid. The film was directed by **Wolfgang Petersen **and written by future Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff. For years, Brad Pitt has been the perfect man for Hollywood’s big occasions, and that remained true for Troy, as he played the leading role of Achilles. Starring alongside Pitt were Lord of the Rings’ Bloom and Sean Bean, who plays Boromir in The Lord of the Rings and Odysseus in *Troy. *Now, ahead of the highly anticipated and somewhat controversial release of Christopher Nolan’s own Greek mythology movie, The Odyssey, based on Homer’s poem. Petersen’s Troy has become a streaming sensation on HBO Max, while making inroads on VOD platforms like Apple TV Store, according to FlixPatrol.

The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people.

You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.

You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.

You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.

You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late.

Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.

You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.

You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.

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