TV Talk: Chariot races, gladiator battles fill 'Those About to Die'

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

The next few weeks should bring new subscribers to Peacock with its wall-to-wall coverage of the Summer Olympics from Paris beginning July 26, so the streaming service will use those increased eyeballs watching to also debut and promote a new drama series, the ancient Rome-set “Those About to Die,” streaming all 10 first-season episodes Thursday.

While Starz’s “Spartacus” series focused on the “Upstairs, Downstairs” dynamic at a gladiator training home, “Those About to Die” casts a wider net, exploring the corrupt business of gladiator and chariot race competition through an ensemble of characters from assorted social classes and locales.

British actor Anthony Hopkins is the biggest name in the series, playing Emperor Vespasian. Iwan Rheon (“Game of Thrones”) stars as a brutal political operator who doesn’t like it when others rig chariot races. Blood, mild gore and equal opportunity full-frontal nudity are all on display.

Created and written by Robert Rodat (“Falling Skies,” “Saving Private Ryan”), half the episodes are directed by Roland Emmerich, the German director who helmed “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

“There was so much cheating going on,” Emmerich said, in a Zoom interview late last month, of horse racing in ancient Rome. “That was great to show. It’s very entertaining to cheat.”

Emmerich said there’s not a lot of difference between directing a movie compared to a streaming series in terms of techniques and equipment used. But he said the longer duration of a series shoot takes its toll.

“It’s more stress,” he said. “You had to go faster, and it’s 230 (shooting) days, nearly a year. You have to have stamina.”

Of those 230 days, Emmerich said he spent 108 days filming scenes on a Volume stage. Rather than using traditional green screens where backgrounds get added in post-production, the Volume, popularized on Disney+’s “The Mandalorian,” surrounds actors with large, high-definition video walls that display computer-­generated backdrops.

Emmerich described Hopkins as a fan of Roman culture with knowledge about it, too.

“He was a joy to work with and a very inventive actor,” Emmerich said. “And he stuck totally to the text (of the script), which is also unusual, trust me. He always says, ‘I’m an English actor, I’m not one of those Hollywood types.’ ”

Emmerich said despite the stress of making season one, he’s up for directing a portion of a second season of “Those About to Die,” should it be renewed (“If they want to spend the money, yes,” he said). He imagines it could focus on nautical games that go unexplored in season one.

Despite his history making projects for the big screen, Emmerich said he has ideas for other streaming series, including one about Lawrence of Arabia.

“That (1962) film influenced me. When I saw it the first time, I had an inkling I could maybe become a director,” Emmerich said. “When I researched (T.E. Lawrence), he was so much shorter, this pipsqueak, and I said, ‘Oh my god, if the people would know that!’ ”