He is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And he will have his vengeance, in this life or the next. And it does appear he’ll get a chance, as the 2000 sword and sandals romp that won a Best Picture and made Russell Crowe into a household name is coming back for round two.
Yes, it appears Ridley Scott is going to see whether we’re entertained by another Gladiator movie. This movie, evidently, will focus on Lucius — the bad guy emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix in the original. Both Phoenix’s character and Crowe’s didn’t make it to the end credits on Gladiator, so seems safe to say that this will be some sort of prequel. It’ll be written by Peter Craig, who wrote The Town and two Hunger Games movies.
And that’s a shame, because there’s already a Gladiator sequel script that exists and it is bananas. It was written by legendary folk rock icon Nick Cave, and it involved Maximus ascending to Mount Olympus, where the gods actually send him back to earth to kill Jesus before he can steal the popularity of the Roman pantheon. But when Maximus meets Jesus, he becomes so enamored with him that he switches sides and becomes a supernatural defender of the Early Church.
Sound crazy? You haven’t heard anything yet. In this movie which is called, no joke, Christ Killer, Maximus becomes an “Eternal Warrior” and takes up arms in every major historical conflict from the time of Rome up to the present. The entire script has been posted online and you can read the whole insane thing for free. But you can’t actually watch the movie because, apparently, the cowards in Hollywood don’t know a good idea when they hear one.
