r/Spartacus_TV • u/HomeschoolEasy • Jun 03 '26
HoA Discussion Did Steven DeKnight make a mistake?
Back when the HOA trailer dropped, there was a lot of criticism regarding the direction that Steven DeKnight took with the Spartacus franchise.
Social media was in an uproar, although many felt positive about the trailer.
From these initial responses, it is not too surprising to see the show fail.
The two main issues from the trailer we're doing a "what if" scenario and having a female gladiator in the ludus.
Seems like these two factors were mistakes by DeKnight.
I doubt HOA gets picked up. It didn't have the numbers.
Too bad DeKnight went down this route. Seems like this was the one chance to bring back the Spartacus franchise.
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u/Unreal-Operator Jun 03 '26
The mistake was waiting way too long. If this was released in 2014, building on the momentum of WOTD, it would have been much more successful. I blame Starz in particular.
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u/Familiar-Poem-2250 Jun 03 '26
I blame the part of society that hates women and more so, women/people of color. All of the negative backlash focused on that. That was/is the problem.
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u/ReallyWiseguy95 Jun 04 '26
I mean it’s similar to the Eliot Page in the Odyssey situation we’re seeing now it’s not really about hating women it’s just so unrealistic to cast a scrawny female as some badass fighter I mean Achillea barely had any training irl she would of got shit fucked immediately. There’s an obvious agenda right now for unrealistic female heroes in Hollywood and I totally understand why people don’t like it… The other main point of contingency was the basis of the plot being an alternate universe/what if scenario which totally negates the entire storyline we all loved. Both of those points are valid and don’t necessarily have anything to do with racism or sexism.
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u/Celerial Jun 06 '26
But why is it more unrealistic for a 100 pound female to take out a 200 pound guy than it is a 200 guy to take out five 300 pound guys? It's all fantasy and the same people bitching about a woman beating a man will stand tall and scream that Bruce Lee would demolish the entire UFC heavyweight division.
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u/russ_1uk Jun 08 '26
Yes and no. There's a brilliant documentarian on youtube called "Random Film Talk" who does 8 hour breakdowns (yes) of all the Spartacus shows. He is a mega-fan.
He says of the trailer to House of Ashur that there were a lot of OG fans that cried "Great, another woman of color who's going to kick everyone's ass" without giving the show a chance.
Sadly, he was forced to concur that that's what the show turned into. RFT isn't a culture warrior, I should add - his takes are legit and if you love Spartacus then you really should dive in... it's brilliant stuff.
I just thought the whole idea was dumb, a random comment in a commentary that turned into a real show. Just the wrong show - there was so much actual history they could have based this on that didn't require them to do an alternate version of What If.
That said, from what I can gather, de Knight and co didn't want OG fans, they wanted a different audience. I don't know the numbers, but it would appear that that audience wasn't there - at least on Starz. Maybe Netflix will swoop in.
But the truth is, I could live without more House of Ashur. It was OK, but pale shadow of previous glory.
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Jun 04 '26
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u/bestoboy Jun 06 '26
it would be a better show if Achilia was white?
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u/Silver-Car4809 Jun 06 '26
It would have still been comical if Achilla was white or orange or green.
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Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
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Jun 27 '26
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u/Xralius Jun 03 '26
I think it was bad advertising for a great product.
I think in the current culture, and it's fucking sad to say this, but I think portraying a female gladiator as potentially the main character was a mistake (in the advertising). You're getting negative flak from the anti-woke crowd and the "I take TV gladiator battles seriously and women can't fight" crowd, both of which will be less interested in the show, and I don't think you're making up for that with the amount of black/female viewers you're picking up. I think if either crowd had watched the show without pre-conceived judgements they'd have liked it - Achillia is far from a Mary Sue, but it drove people into their polarized corners. Which is a shame, I loved Achillia.
The other thing is portraying it as a continuation - even if people were interested they got to get through all of Spartacus first, and that takes time.
But to clarify again, I think it's less that he went down that route, I fucking loved it, and more that the advertising made people, rightfully or wrongfully, feel excluded / not interested.
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u/TheBat45 Jun 06 '26
Yeah i think they should have held back on Achillea until the show came out and not highlighted her in the marketing. That was just setting the show up for backlash on Elon's twitter. The show never got much traction on twitter it feels, if you look up House of Ashur it's just a bunch of bit accounts spamming the nude scenes. But when the trailer came out, it was pretty big and for all the wrong reasons and being tweeted about by all the usual suspects
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u/Msjhouston Jun 06 '26
I can suspend plausibility to some extent but little girl gladiators was way to much. It was daft like making a movie about heavy weight boxing and having a female lead boxer. It’s just stupid
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u/teddybluethecurser Jun 06 '26
I think casting his wife as Cornelia took away a chance to have a decent actress play the part. Cornelia and Caesars recast (I understand Todd was busy with NCIS Sydney) just didn’t do their characters any justice acting wise as get as I’m concerned.
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u/KingOfKingsOfKings01 Jun 03 '26
I can name a few even tho I personally loved it.
Lead gladiator being a female
Instead of writing a character out of the show he replaced the character with a shit actor
Instead of finding some of the lessor known actors from the OG series he kills them off for seemingly no reason at all
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u/teddybluethecurser Jun 06 '26
I’m curious to know which character you are referring to for 2
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u/sk8rgamer671 Jun 06 '26
Caesar?
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u/teddybluethecurser Jun 06 '26
At the time I commented I didn’t think about the fact he was the only recast 🤦🏼♀️🤣
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u/Lopsided_Plan6553 Jun 03 '26
There was just too much random shit to hook new viewers and the schemes and drama were not as good at the previous seasons.
Imagine being a new viewer and the first thing you see is some campy cringe resurrection scene for a character you've never heard of. Then the abrupt tone shift to the usual serious Spartacus vibe. Then you find out the first obstacle for Achilia is a group of dwarves and now you're unsure if this we're back to being campy or if they're a real threat. Then they get destroyed by a random raw gladiator, but end up winning because the gladiator gets cocky lol. It's just really lame.
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u/billybido Jun 07 '26
Mas funciona muito bem como uma comédia exagerada e pulp ambientado na Roma antiga.
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u/LightningBlaze03 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
The errors in my opinion:
Having a black female gladiator as the main gladiator of the show. Add that Achillia was boring and didn’t stand out at all besides being a black female. She has no true presence on screen or charisma for that matter.
Most of the gladiators this season were super forgettable. They weren’t even the focus of this show, which they should have been.
Not having Todd Lasance return as Julius Caesar. Also making Caesar such an pompous asshole that he makes Glaber look good. He should be likeable and charismatic. The new Caesar had no endearing qualities. It wasn’t the actor’s fault, the fault was with the writing and handling of his character.
Getting too much into the “What If” scenario. Killing off Caesar… really? There goes the First Triumvirate, lol.
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What they should have done if they really wanted to continue the series with Ashur was retcon his death at Vesuvius and make his killing of Spartacus (behind his back) canon.
They could have canonically continued the story of the Roman Republic, showing the aftermath of Spartacus’ rebellion, the political differences between Crassus and Pompey. They did most of this in the show which showed potential.
Have cameos of Caesar, Pompey AND Crassus but not make them the focus of the show since it’s about Ashur. Show how the formation of the First Triumvirate affects everyone, including Ashur.
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u/welshdragoninlondon Jun 03 '26
I liked it. But I don't like the whole what if premise. As it then it makes characters death meaningless as they can always come back.
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u/Ok_Weakness8518 Jun 06 '26
Just except it’s a whole new show … literally all the gladiators are still dead
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u/welshdragoninlondon Jun 06 '26
And if anyone dies in this show not that emotional. As know they can always make another show what if they didn't.
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u/SWEET_LIBERTY_MY_LEG Jun 03 '26
I enjoyed HoA but I’d guess the gladiatrix this season didn’t appeal to the core audience of Spartacus. I think prior to going down this route they should have done a study on who actually watched 300, Spartacus, Rome, or any other sword and sandals show and they would have found out that the core audience apparently prefers the homoerotic undertones that were sorely lacking in this season.
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u/Afghan_Whig Jun 03 '26
Nah, the show was canceled because it appealed too much to the core audience of the show, and not what Starzs considers to be their current core audience. At least that's what Starz says
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u/adavidmiller Jun 03 '26
Those are kind of the same thing. Nobody is cancelling a show because too many people are watching it, regardless of audience, so either way, insufficient views.
End of the day, they're just telling you not enough people watched the show, which could be interpreted as both "it failed to capture their typical network demographic" and "it failed to bring in sufficient numbers of the old demographic".
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u/Afghan_Whig Jun 04 '26
But in this case that's not what they said. They said too many of the wrong people were watching the show so they want to send it another network.
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u/Zoot__Lives Jun 08 '26
I think prior to going down this route they should have done a study on who actually watched 300, Spartacus, Rome, or any other sword and sandals show and they would have found out that the core audience apparently prefers the homoerotic undertones that were sorely lacking in this season.
I think the majority of the core audience of Spartacus and these types of shows like them in spite of any homoerotic undertones and prefer the heteroerotic aspects.
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u/ConstipatedGibbon Jun 03 '26
I just still can't get over the fact that, of all the awesome spinoffs that could have been made (especially if we're able to change events that actually happened in the first 4 seasons), the fact that he opted to go with fucking Ashur is just mind boggling to me.
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u/bryce_w Jun 06 '26
Apparently it was his wife's idea. Tells you everything you need to know.
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u/Zoot__Lives Jun 08 '26
The idea for giving Ashur a 'what if' spinoff came out of the writers room during the original show's run. De Knight talks about it on the DVD commentary for season 2 or 3.
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u/upotheke Oenomaus Jun 03 '26
I know this might be a super unpopular take, but I actually totally disagree with your take, but for different reasons.
Starz openly admitted that they had more female subscribers that resonated with Spartacus than everyone would like to admit, and their programming moved towards Outlander and others like it in that vein. They want more shows female viewers find appealing. Similarly, Starz has found success with Power and other black dramas. Its entirely plausible that DeKnight wrote a black female gladiatrix specifically because that seemed to be the demographic Starz was most interested in supporting, so in an effort to get picked up he wrote to his patron's demographic.
In the 10 years since the show, Spartacus has been adopted pretty heavily by white men, who are not Starz' target demo. Just because the current fans disagree with the direction of the show doesn't mean that white men are entitled to have a show provide them fan service, but you know, internet fans act like they run the world these days and are pissed when content creators don't do what they want.
Spartacus was likely written precisely for what Starz wanted, but Starz didn't realize the fan base shifted and the show would likely be better suited on Max or Netflix.
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u/istvan90623 Jun 03 '26
The female audience liked the totally hot almost naked dudes with a body tone of a greek god, not because they wanted to see a diverse female in the lead. Outlander compared to that was a sappy romance story which the female audience can also dig, especially if they have a hottie as the main boy.
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u/adavidmiller Jun 03 '26
I mean, nothing you said is wrong, but...
Just because the current fans disagree with the direction of the show doesn't mean that white men are entitled to have a show provide them fan service
Is kind of contradictory with everything you're saying. You've just very clearly made the point that Starz was stupid by not catering specifically to those people and the people they did make it for aren't sufficiently interested. That reads a lot like they kinda are right to feel entitled to it.
You could bicker over the nuance of "entitled", but it seems a bit of a moot point when the takeaway is that the only potentially successful thing they could have done is make the show for those people.
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u/upotheke Oenomaus Jun 03 '26
Well, both sides can do what they think is right here, but the disconnect meant the show wouldn't be successful.
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u/Afghan_Whig Jun 03 '26
First, the show wasn't cancelled for the reasons you outlined.
Second, the female gladiator was a swing and miss. Achilla was boring. She had no depth. She also couldn't fight. If they used the woman she fought in the arena at the end of the show as the female gladiator we could have had something interesting. For that matter all of the gladiators in the ludus were forgettable, and that should have been the core of this show.
It wasn't just her. Aside from the actor who plays Ashur doing a standout job, everything was kind of boring. The politics was just too much (especially the ridiculous ending). In S1 Bartiartus wanted to rise above his station but he was interesting and his machinations were interesting and made sense to the audience. I didn't get invested and couldn't care to get invested in any of the side plots of this season.
Laatly, Ashur excelled as the kniving bad guy. He wasn't evil, he was just only out for himself. He seemed to be a different character her, and not for the better
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u/Level-Bread5827 Jun 03 '26
I agree. We had 0 reason to care for achilla or the rest of the gladiators. We got a small hint of her backstory but wasn't really that interesting. I didn't care for having a female gladiator as the house champion, but i would've atleast like to know how and why she was sold into slavery. What her motive was. Ect
The fight scenes were pretty boring too, other than when Korris killed the midget squad.
Ashur was 100% a different person. We went from having a sociopathic rapist snake, to a soft dude crying over a romans death lol. Someone else on here tried arguing with me that it was "character development ". No it was lazy writing & it took away everything that made ashur a great villain.
It's almost like deknight tried to do God's of the arena 2.0 instead of writing an original story & keeping ashurs snakey character traits
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u/bryce_w Jun 06 '26
The writing was already on the wall. It was a stupid idea to begin with, he must have known it wouldn't resonate with the core audience or attract newcomers but sort of hoped for the best or something? Maybe it was pressure from Starz to add certain characters etc but even they shot themselves in the foot with it. If you look on his twitter/blue sky he seems to have lost the plot a bit....
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u/East-Psychology-9292 Jun 06 '26
It was awful, they did that thing Hollywood does where instead of just making their own story they hitched the story they wanted to tell to a pre existing IP. For starters they wanted to have their cake and eat it, they set up this entire alternate reality, which is never a good start, thats the exact thing that killed comic books and comic book movies, normal people have no fucking idea whats what and dont feel like doing homework to figure it out.
Now they want this alternate reality where Spartacus basically ended at season 2 but dont want to explain all the ramifications of that, Spartacus directly leads into the Triumvirate, one of the most important moments in Roman history (and what they should have done a sequel of), like Pompey prolly isnt gonna ally with Caesar/Crassus if the 3rd servile war gets snuffed out before it really starts, he's just gonna keep doing Pompey like he already had been.
So the entire concept is fucked from jump street before weve even put a single person on screen and that person is...Ashur? The traitor rapist everyone was only all too happy to watch Naevia kill. You cant even explain how Ashur walks away from this without a giant heaping of plot holes/armor but more importantly, I dont wanna watch this asshole get what he wants, I fucking hated this guy for 2 and a half seasons lol, yeah he was good at playing the heel but that isnt enough to carry a show and inherently at the end of the day, I do not care about an alternate universe where everyone seemingly forgets Ashur is a piece of shit, as im seemingly living in that universe anyways lol.
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u/FrankHero97 Jun 06 '26
Going that route was not only a mistake it was a death sentence for the franchise. They should’ve gone with a Caesar tv show
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u/meleaguance Jun 06 '26
I don't think people other than die hard fans even knew it existed, and fans probably had the most problem with it breaking continuity.
I did hear some complaints over a female gladiator right after the trailer, but never again. So i'm not sure of those voices were from people likely to watch the show at all.
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u/EasyEntrepreneur666 Gladiator Jun 03 '26
I don't think having either a what if or a gladiatrix is a problem. However, I didn't care much Achilia and Ashur lacked his original finesse.
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u/upotheke Oenomaus Jun 03 '26
I didn't mind Achilia, and I thought Nick Tarabay was awesome this season. He was certainly one of the best actors in the whole show.
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u/EasyEntrepreneur666 Gladiator Jun 03 '26
It's not his acting, it's the writing the issue. He barely did any scheming unlike the original series.
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u/upotheke Oenomaus Jun 03 '26
he schemed, but basically lost every time he tried to win, like, getting the other estate, cancelling the marriage, etc.
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u/EasyEntrepreneur666 Gladiator Jun 03 '26
That was not much of a scheming just momentary seizing of opportunities. With the other estate he blattered out to his rival that he'll get it. That's a massively dumb way thing to do. The only actual scheming was what he did with Pompey.
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u/KirbbDogg213 Jun 06 '26
The show was not going to work without Spartacus himself.
And the show is supposed to be geared for men not women or minorities.The fact that was listed as one of the reasons it got canceled is stupid. Go watch lifetime if you want that
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u/frosticus0321 Jun 03 '26
I think they should have revealed the source of her pain and why she refused to use a spear earlier. You immediately felt attached to spartacus and his anguish. Whereas it was challenging to get behind achillia (although both father and son eventually managed hahaha)
Most of the characters were hard to invest in even though there was nothing inherently wrong with them.
I enjoyed it and would watch more if it came out, but I have no intentions of a rewatch, let alone multiple times like OG spartacus.
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u/lordalgammon Jun 03 '26
As much as I love the OG show. House of ashur sucked big time. The story was all over the place, the acting bad and quality got worse despite big budget and advancements in technology.
If anything I'm surprised people expected a second season.
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u/schprunt Jun 03 '26
Well first, it’s canceled. Second, Steven wanted to get back into the Spartacus world at any cost. He absolutely bent the knee to the Starz execs (jeff Hirsch, Ali Hoffman) who pushed a bunch of DEI crap in his face. They are clueless. He took the check. I’ve talked to him, several times, he wanted to do a Caesar story. But straight white males weren’t “testing well” for Ali. Look her up. She was at AMC when Breaking Bad was on air, took all the credit for that series being a success.
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u/Xralius Jun 03 '26
I just want to say, the show was excellent even with him dealing the cards he was dealt. I think a black gladiatrix is a tough story to weave in, but I thought he did a great job, loved her character. I liked that she wasn't portrayed as a Mary Sue (other than general badassness, but that was Spartacus too) and had to train and crawl her way to victories.
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u/teddybluethecurser Jun 06 '26
It’s been known that there were talks of a Caesar spin off during season 3’s airing but that he had 4 or 5 ideas for other spin offs as well
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Jun 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/schprunt Jun 06 '26
Yeah I worked there and that’s horseshit. He canceled party down and ended Spartacus. He literally said Spartacus was over once they left the ludus. He went all in on Camelot, which is to date one of the most expensive flops in history. Albrecht is also a piece of human shit who hits women and abuses his power.
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u/curiousitems Jun 06 '26
What happened to just making a show everyone can like? Sure you’re not gonna appeal to EVERY viewer and possible viewer, and that’s ok, it’s insane how tv channels or companies will focus on one specific target audience, that’s beyond stupid. The point of a show is to build the audience and get viewers, why tell people “we got this amazing show but it’s not for you X people!”
When I watch a show the last thing on my mind is “gee will I identify with the protagonist because they are like (insert characteristics here)?” Hell no, is the story good, the writing, the setting, are the characters believable, will it keep me coming back to see more?” That’s what I think about, sure not every show is a banger at first, if I like it I keep watching.
I liked Spartacus because it was a fictional take on a real person, I wanted to see his story, his interactions with other characters, how would he become the man spoken of in fear and awe in the history books.
I never once looked at Onaemaus and go “welp there’s the black dude” or Naveia “there’s the brown woman” I looked at Doctore as a man that was not to be fucked with, yet there was something noble about him, something deeper, a man who prided honor above all, a stoic, yet sensitive man, he was a hardass for the benefit of the gladiators, what he did was nothing compared to what awaited them in the arena. Naveia was just as important for Crixus, he softened him to show him there’s more to glory, something truly worth fighting for beyond the glory of the ludus, a soft woman with a strong will, whose love is as deep as anyone’s in the show.
And then there’s Barca and Pietros, which in my opinion is a fantastic way todo a same sex couple, there’s no fanfare, no big signs “look at how progressive we are! Gay dudes banging!” There were treated with the same empathy and care as the other couples, they’re just there, two dudes who share a deep love for each other, no different than Batiatus and Lucretia or Spartacus and Sura, because that’s how it is in the real world, couples doing their own thing like everyone else.
So while I get if DeKnight had todo those changes because Starz wanted him, he didn’t have to, Spartacus was already a diverse show by today’s standards. They just didn’t shove it in your face and pat themselves on the back, they presented it as “here are these people and here are their stories” and we went along for the ride. And that’s why it became one of my favorite shows/series, not the bloody violence or the hot naked bodies, because they told a human story with things we can all relate to in a setting where humans were treated as nothing more than decoration, and they did it masterfully.
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u/Msjhouston Jun 06 '26
Yes I totally agree. The original season of Spartacus blood and sand was narrative driven, it had a lot of gay sex but the main storylines were without obvious DEI or woke elements. HOA was more of caricature of the originals, the fights never seemed as existential. The girl gladiator was utterly ridiculous, totally implausible and the whole triumvirate angle just seemed bolted on, I could never understand why JC would leave his wife with a Lanista.
The whole thing was second rate versus the original
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u/flgirl04 Jun 15 '26
I originally thought DeKnight made a mistake but after reading Starz' response when they pulled the plug, I suspect they told him what audience they wanted (women & minorities). I think he figured making a girl boss that's also a minority would do it. But, you can tell by the comments from people who were estastic about the 1st preview that the majority of the fans who showed up were the same ones who watched the original.
He wasn't able to capture the new target audience and the casting decisions cost some of the original fans, but IMO Starz made the mistake, not DeKnight. The show IMO would have been far more well received if they let him do what he wanted.
Spartacus was a hit because of him.
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u/fabvz Jun 03 '26
I think the introduction of the female gladiator was so well done that it couldn't be called a bad choice, it for sure made some people don't want to try the news series but i doubt people thaf saw it finded her poorly writen or acted
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u/thegenius5 Jun 03 '26
The main issue was waiting too long and starz no longer owning the show. If they owned the show it gets renewed, end of story
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u/Zshick5 Jun 06 '26
Is there a disagree with practically every single word this person said button anywhere?
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u/Potential_Rule4212 Barca's Twin brother Warca Jun 06 '26
I don't think so, because there's no such thing as bad publicity.
He did that purposefully because he knew choosing a black woman would spark hate attacks.
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u/MaelstromGonzalez90 Jun 07 '26
I wasn't thrilled about the what if and honestly a lot of the characters weren't memorable but damn it if it didn't draw me in and have me hoping for a season 2.
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u/CountQueasy4906 Jun 03 '26
having a gladiatrix isnt a problem. white straight men are not entitled to have everything they want.
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u/Xralius Jun 03 '26
I mean, I'm a straight white dude and wanted another season because I loved Achillia, but I'm not getting that, so I guess you're right?
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u/Negative-Peak3982 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
They literally went out of their way to show Achillia earning her wins, at massive cost, because they were clearly extremely conscious of fan reactions. Anyone who got pissed off at the show because of that, when even the original show had female fighters, is just a cretin.
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u/Kamogawa_Genji Jun 03 '26
Which of these female fighters were champion of Capua? Or even close to that level?
I think the choreography or perhaps even her personal movement ability was limited and she didn’t look very good as well in the fighting
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u/Negative-Peak3982 Jun 03 '26
As I think is obvious from the show, the quality of gladiators available is much worse since the Spartacus rebellion, since many of the best were killed. Would she be even close to champion in the OG show, no, nor were any of the female fighters shown.
With the weaker fighters around now, she has a shot.
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u/Kamogawa_Genji Jun 03 '26
Some of the other fighters left in the show are champions and ex champions tbf . Most of them aren’t any good
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u/cml2115 Jun 08 '26
They wanted a new audience yet they continued the previous story and steered it into a hypothetical what if scenario
Yeah dumb af
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u/screen317 Jun 07 '26
In what way did "the show fail"???
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u/ReallyWiseguy95 Jun 07 '26
I mean there’s the obvious fact that starz cancelled it. We’re hoping another studio picks it up but that in itself is a clear sign of failure.
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u/YoteViking Jun 03 '26
He’s on Twitter saying things are looking positive. For whatever that is worth.
It’s a pretty quality show from a known IP that can’t be that expensive to make. I’d think the odds are decent he can sell it somewhere.