The Five Spot: The New Pepsi Gladiator Commercial Is Somehow More And Less Weird Than The Original

Also: GRRM is annoyed with the dragon show and a Philly crab heist

The Five Spot is a weekly Friday roundup where I rank and riff on my five favorite things from the week. Most of the entries will be about film and TV, but there might also be ones about weird local news or sandwiches I ate or anything else, really. The whole thing is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to read the top four entries, you can do that by upgrading…

Off we go.

FIVE: Who drinks a can of Pepsi in a bar?

What we have here is a three-minute commercial for, I guess, Pepsi and football and the upcoming sequel to Gladiator. But mostly for Pepsi. It’s weird. I don’t mean just the plot of it either, which features beloved character actors Lamorne Morris and Jake Lacy sipping a Pepsi and being transported back in time to Ancient Rome where an empress portrayed by Megan Thee Stallion raps over a cover of “We Will Rock You” while a group of NFL players — Josh Allen, Justin Jefferson, Derrick Henry, and Travis Kelce, who I choose to believe was already on a nearby set filming another commercial and just kind of wandered over into this one — battle tigers in the Colosseum as the crowd whoops and yells. I mean, yes, sure, of course that’s all weird in a very “we locked six marketing majors in a room with an espresso machine and this is what they came up with” way, but it’s also weird because:

• Lamorne and Jake get transported back in time through the power of a single sip of Pepsi

• Which they both order by name — not an “I’ll have a Coke”/“Is Pepsi okay?” situation — in a bar

• And is served to them in an unopened can

Am I maybe overthinking this all a bit? Sure, I’ll give you that, especially given the time travel and Megan Thee Stallion of it all. But I do need you to consider one thing before you judge me: Imagine you walk into a bar and two dudes are sitting there watching the big game with CANS OF PEPSI sitting in front of them. Not even a fountain drink. Just a can. I think I would call the police. Something has to be afoot in that establishment.

The other thing worth noting here is that this is not even the first three-minute Gladiator-related advertising Pepsi has made. This is actually a sequel to one made in 2004, which features Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Pink also singing “We Will Rock You” to the massive displeasure of the Pepsi-chugging emperor who is played by, I swear to God, Enrique Iglesias. Here, look.

This ad, which never actually aired in America but lives on in our memories due to the power of the internet, is also wild, and not just for the whole “three female gladiators enter the arena to fight to the death and instead throw down their swords and stage an impromptu rock concert for the bloodthirsty crowd” part of it. It also climaxes with the thumping and stomping of the crowd knocking over emperor Enrique’s Pepsi cooler and triggering a cartoonish sequence where he gets launched into the pit and — we presume — eaten by a lion as three pop stars heave cans of Pepsi to the crowd. I have made a GIF of this, more for me than for you…

In conclusion:

• Imagine if they had gotten Beyonce for this new commercial, too

• I really hope Lamorne Morris got to hang out with Megan Thee Stallion

• Let’s do this all again in another 20 years

Thank you.

FOUR: George R.R. Martin is annoyed about House of the Dragon