Although Maximus Decimus Meridius pretty much died at the end of Gladiator, Sir Ridley Scott believes he's found a way of bringing both Russell Crowe and the character back from the dead for a Gladiator sequel.
Would Scott like to elucidate further? Hah, not a chance. However, at a SXSW event, Scott explained that he's in talks with the studio - presumably 20th Century Fox - about making a Gladiator sequel and he feels he's cracked the idea. "I was having this talk with the studio — 'but he's dead'. But there is a way of bringing him back. Whether it will happen I don't know. Gladiator was 2000, so Russell's changed a little bit. He's doing something right now but I'm trying to get him back down here."
What's interesting, however, is that there was a sequel to Gladiator mapped out that Nick Cave - as in, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - had penned a script for. Think that's weird enough already?
According to Cave's script, which he described in detail to Marc Maron on WTF Podcast back in 2013, Gladiator 2 came about when "(Russell Crowe) rang me up and asked if I wanted to write Gladiator 2."
“For someone who had only written one film script, it was quite an ask. ‘Hey Russell, didn’t you die in ‘Gladiator 1′?’ ‘Yeah, you sort that out.’ So, he goes down to purgatory and is sent down by the gods, who are dying in heaven because there’s this one god, there’s this Christ character, down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the many gods are dying so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and his followers."
Rrrrighhht... gotcha, Nick Cave. In fact, Cave even wanted to call the sequel Gladiator: Christ Killer. Again, this is not a joke and you can check Marc Maron's WTF Podcast with Cave if you don't believe us.
Via IBTimes