Issue Date: August 28, 2005

A new eye to ancient 'sports'

A modern stadium design guru analyzes the Roman Colosseum epic "Gladiator."

The plot: General Maximus (Russell Crowe) is asked by the dying emperor to take power, but when the emperor's power-hungry heir, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), catches wind of this, he flies into a jealous rage and orders the execution of Maximus and his family. Narrowly escaping death, Maximus is sold into slavery and forced to fight his way back to freedom in the Roman Colosseum.

Insider's credentials: As one of the founders of the architectural firm HOK Sport + Venue + Event, Dennis Wellner is reinventing the modern sports experience. He has designed 12 NFL stadiums, including Heinz Field, Dolphins Stadium and Cleveland Browns Stadium. Wellner's latest project, opening in 2006, is the Arizona Cardinals Stadium, a state-of-the-art facility featuring 88 luxury "lofts," a roll-out natural grass field and retractable roof.

Overview: "The movie absolutely held my attention in two ways: the character development and the visual representation of the scale of the Roman Empire."

-- Scene 8: A soldier's death -- Maximus finds his wife and child murdered by Commodus' army.

"Commodus was completely despicable. I was surprised how much hatred you could develop for a character. As the audience, you wanted his head."

-- Scene 12: The greatness of Rome -- Overhead shot of the Colosseum

"This gave you a sense of the stage on which the action is taking place. The Colosseum was really a multipurpose facility in which many types of events were held: Christians were thrown to the lions, it was flooded and mock naval battles were held, and, of course, gladiators fought. In physical size, an NFL stadium is considerably larger than the Colosseum, which only measured about 600 feet long and 500 feet in width, taking up about 6 acres."

-- Scene 15: Battle of Carthage -- Gladiators run onto the field in armor and look up to see a crowd of more than 50,000.

"Before an NFL game, if you're at field level like I've been, you see the team lining up with helmets and pads -- these giants coming out, psyching themselves up. And you see the fans' emotional attachment to the game. We have our contemporary gladiators in football. There's an exact parallel, except the dying part."

-- Bonus feature: Storyboard gallery -- A behind-the-scenes look at how the film was visualized before the cameras started rolling.

"This is similar to what we do. In the movie, the director will make a statement about his vision for a particular scene, and the storyboard artist creates that, and then execution requires thousands of people. We do the same thing with concept design drawings for a $400 million stadium."

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan

Watching the new DVD, Wellner noticed a parallel between stadium building and moviemaking.