There Was Almost a Gladiator 2 And It Sounds Terrible
On today’s episode we were asked by a listener about what movies we think should have had a sequel. We thought some like ‘District 9′, ‘National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets’, ‘Inception’ etc. were obvious answers. And in a random moment of serendipity, I found an article today about how Gladiator almost got a sequel.
(CBR) “So in 2006, they hired the famous singer/songwriter, Nick Cave, to come up with a sequel in which Crowe could star in.
The concept of the film was that Maximus would be brought back to life by the Roman gods and he would be tasked with helping to save the early Christians from being killed by the Romans.”
If that wasn’t wild enough, upon further review its even crazier than that.
(The Guardian) “The Bad Seed certainly came up with an inventive solution. According to one blog’s synopsis of the script, Crowe’s Maximus meddles with Roman gods in the afterlife, is reincarnated, defends early Christians, reunites with his son, and ultimately lives forever – leading tanks in the second world war and even mucking around in the modern-day Pentagon.“
I mean, it sounds so bad I had to triple check it wasn’t something from the Onion(It still might be). More importantly, Gladiator is one of the best movies of all time, see evidence below:
1. “What we do in life, echos in eternity!”
2. “Are you not entertained?!”
3. “I will see you again. But not yet, not yet”
I just simply can’t imagine Maximus doing the fucking intro scene from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It would be an unspeakably horrific disservice to a timeless classic. That said, I would green-light this movie in a second. Why? A better question is why not? Nothing is sacred in cinema anymore. Reboot and remake everything I say. Make Titanic 2(unrelated to the very real sequel) where Jack’s spirit comes back to possess any and all of Rose’s lovers mid-coitus and make them bust too fast. Goodfellas 2, the gang gets back together to go back in time and rob the Luftwaffe and bankrupt Nazi Germany. Saving Private Ryan 2: Ryan has a girlfriend who is too domineering so his friends (Steve Zahn and Jack Black) try to break them up and get him back with his ex who is cool. Everyone is motion captured by Andy Serkis.
I’d love to see Maximus fighting side by side with Jesus to be honest. Almost like the MAD TV skit where the terminator comes back in time to kill Judas. Add that to having him lead the assault on Omaha Beach?? Fighting in Vietnam?? Searching for WMD’s in Iraq? (ok maybe not that last one). Butter me up. Unless he fights for the Nazis or Confederates or something, that would be a pretty severe bummer.
What movie do you think should have had a sequel? Let us know and don’t forget to subscribe to Lights, Camera, Pod, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram and join in on the conversation on our Reddit.