There Was A Gladiator Sequel Planned With A Brutally Controversial Storyline

Ridley Scott's epic action film Gladiator is a favourite for many film fans, and if musician Nick Cave had his way it could have gotten a bonkers, highly controversial sequel.

You might be questioning exactly how a sequel would work, because if you've seen the film you'll know that the main character, played by Russell Crowe, didn't manage to make it all the way to the credits.

If you've not already seen the film, I apologise, but it's been 22 years.

DreamWorks Pictures

Anyway, the point is Crowe's character would struggle to make a comeback for a sequel - until you get Cave involved, that is.

Cave was approached to write the sequel by none other than Crowe himself, and the singer later relayed the conversation he had with the star during an appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

After Cave confirmed with Crowe that he did in fact die in the first film, Crowe apparently responded: "Yeah, you sort that out.”

Having been given his instructions, Cave got to work on the script and came up with a story which depicted Crowe's character Maximus as immortal.

Following his death in the first film, Cave explained, Maximus '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'.

Alamy

As many of the gods are dying, they end up sending Maximus back to Earth to 'kill Christ and his followers'.

I'm sure I don't need to point out the issues many people would have with this storyline.

As if the notion of killing Christ wasn't problematic enough, Cave also planned to reveal 'that the main guy was his son so he has to kill his son and he was tricked by the gods'.

"He becomes this eternal warrior and it ends with this 20 minute war scene which follows all the wars in history, right up to Vietnam and all that sort of stuff," he said.

Evidently the film was set to be pretty chaotic, and that was reflected further through the planned name for the project: Christ Killer.

Unsurprisingly the sequel didn't get the green light, and though Cave said Crowe reacted with the words, "Don’t like it, mate," Scott has previously claimed it was actually producers that squashed the project.

While I think it's safe to say Cave's project will never see the light of day, Ridley Scott confirmed to Deadline in November that a new script for Gladiator 2 has been completed - which doesn't appear to involve Russell Crowe killing Jesus.

While there is currently no official release date for the sequel, we do know it will focus on young ruler Lucius, who Maximus saved by killing Commodus.