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NUMISMATICS OF GLADIATOR IIOn Friday my son Christopher and I saw the film Gladiator II. There was one scene in which the Denzel Washington character gives Paul Mescal's Lucius two coins. They are seen only briefly, from the side, and it happens pretty quickly. I was not able to recall the design(s). They are large and gold-colored. The noise they make on the soundtrack is tinny and fake - not like real gold coins at all. Luckily a poster on Reddit asked about them and included a screenshot from the movie trailer, which includes the scene (or a version of it). -Editor 
To read the Reddit post on r/AncientCoins, see:
The Reddit comments were amusing, but not helpful. In any event, these are stage money and not real coins. I wasn't able to find other references to this scene. But I did find a nice Instagram post with images of genuine coins picturing the film's protagonists. -Editor 
Featured in this pic: Antoninianus of Caracalla and Denarii of Geta, Lucilla and Macrinus.
To read the complete Instagram post, see:
Here's a link to the accompanying video. -Editor Gladiator II was what we all expected, a flashy, bloody, completely ahistorical movie made merely for entertainment. Here is something for the history lovers: The Coins that circulated in Rome at the time the story takes place
To watch the video, see:
Although coins aren't mentioned, Smithsonian Magazine published a nice piece on the real history behind the film. -Editor
Much like its predecessor, Gladiator II takes a relatively loose approach to history, compressing timelines, borrowing real historical figures' names but little of their stories, and inventing other characters entirely. As historian Allen Ward wrote in 2001, the first Gladiator was both "the best of films" and "the worst of films," igniting the public's interest in the ancient world while perpetuating many of the myths surrounding the era. "Certainly creative artists need to be granted some poetic license, but that should not be a permit for the wholesale disregard of facts in historical fiction and costume dramas," Ward added. "In most cases, the easily determined factual details would not have made Gladiator less interesting or exciting, and the record of Commodus' reign contains characters and events that could easily make what is now a good story even better history." Lucius, the main character of the sequel, appears in Gladiator as Lucilla's son. He idolizes Maximus but is unaware that the former general is also his father. After Maximus' death, Lucilla sends Lucius to Numidia, a territory in northwest Africa, to protect him from imperial intrigue. There, he builds a new life for himself, eventually marrying and starting a family. At the beginning of Gladiator II, he is forced to return to Rome after an army led by the fictional general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) invades Numidia, kills Lucius' wife and son, and sells him into slavery as a gladiator. Now, if one of us got to write the screenplay, Numidia would be a land where numismatic scholars are revered as Gods. Alas... -Editor
To read the complete article, see:
Here's a handy article addressing the family tree that runs through the two films. Maybe Gladiator III will feature a moneyer... -Editor
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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