"R" RATING FOR VIOLENCE?

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Braveheart was rated R based almost entirely on its graphic violence

What about Gladiator?

I remember reading that Mel Gibson had been offered the role of Maximus too and Dreamworks even offered him 25 million to star in it and he opted to make The Patriot instead saying that he thought Gladiator had a similar core story to Braveheart. Russell Crowe was 'only' paid 5 million for that role.

I also believe Gladiator's script kept being worked on heavily during filming, maybe that also influenced his decision... it was considerably more than the average big budget movie.

Well, I saw nothing PG-13 about the violence/action scenes/battles/etc. Was too graphic for PG-13. There is one scene where Mel Gibson kills a guy with a hatchet/tomahawk and then starts repeatedly hacking away at the guy's body with the hatchet/tomahawk and blood is flying everywhere. Mel Gibson is covered in the guy's blood by the time he is done. Yeah. That's definitely not PG-13. And then we got cannonballs decapitating soldiers and knocking off limbs with blood spraying everywhere/gushing out. Also too much for PG-13. I think the movie isn't as graphic as other war movies, but it's still too much to be PG-13. So I can see the movie being R for just the graphic violence and nothing else. Maybe if there was stages for ratings, I'd say it's somewhere in the middle of a light/soft and medium R.