Gladiator 2: What Really Happened?
2. Ridley Scott Revisits The Idea, With Crowe In Mind
After Scott and the studio couldn't agree on a direction to go in, with the studio keen on the safe option, Scott wanting something different, and, well, whatever Cave's option could be called, plans for Gladiator 2 fell by the wayside for around a decade.
That was pretty much the case until 2017, when Scott, speaking at South by Southwest Film Festival, told EW that he knew how to bring Crowe's Maximus back for another film, saying:
“I know how to bring him back. 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.”
Aside from the absolute savagery of Scott saying Russell's *changed a bit*, that was pretty much all we got on the matter, and it didn't look like it'd seriously lead anywhere.