Australian musician and professional Old Testament curmudgeon Nick Cave has managed to carve himself out a nice little sideline in screenwriting in recent years, teaming up with fellow Antipodean director John Hillcoat for both the Outback western The Proposition and 2012's historical crime drama Lawless. The former was the first screenplay Cave wrote that was actually produced, but it was by no means the first he had written. Because a scant few years before that he was contacted by another of his countrymen, burly actor and musician in his own right (well...) Russell Crowe, who thought Cave was just the man to pen the sequel to the Oscar-winning Roman epic Gladiator. In an interview Cave said that his version of a follow-up to the fairly straight original "finished with a 20-minute war sequence that ended up in Vietnam, and then in a toilet in the Pentagon, with Russell as this rage-fueled eternal warrior." So it took a bit of a different turn to the original, huh? And then some. The first Gladiator had some issues with historical accuracy, but at least it played its historical drama fairly straight. Cave's planned sequel threw all of that out of the window in favour of some century-spanning mystical hoodoo, as Crowe's hero Maximus would be reincarnated by the Roman gods and returned to Rome to defend Christians against persecution. From there he would continue to be resurrected in different time periods, fighting in different notable battles throughout history before ending up - obviously - a member of the US military brass. Not only were the studio working on both a prequel and a spin-off starring Spencer Treat Clark's Lucius character, but also that is a bat poop crazy script for any Hollywood movie, let alone a sequel to Gladiator. It's also one of the most inspired and downright insane sequel ideas we've ever heard, and it still deserves to get made. You hear us, tinsel town?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
