Are you not entertained?
If you were to take a straw poll of movie fans asking them their favourite films since the turn of the millennium, there’s a good chance Gladiator would be close to the top of the list.
Made in 2000, the tale of Maximus Decimus Meridius and his path from hero to zero back to hero again in ancient Rome struck a chord with audiences around the globe.
We don’t think we’re letting slip any major spoilers when revealing that Maximus (famously portrayed by Russell Crowe) died at the end of the Ridley Scott-directed epic, but Maximus’ death and the fact that it’s been 17 years since the movie was released, hasn’t stopped Scott talking about another movie in the series.
“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,” Scott told Entertainment Weekly at SXSW over the weekend.
“Whether it will happen I don’t know,” he added.
“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.”
Obviously those comments suggest that nothing is set in stone, but it’s clear that there is a possibility of another movie and it’s not just Scott who has spoken about it either.
According to A.V. Club, singer Nick Cave, who has written screenplays for movies in the past, including The Proposition in 2005, was once commissioned by Crowe to pen a sequel that would have seen Maximus “traversing through the afterlife”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea was rejected, despite the obvious connection to Maximus’ famous speech about having vengeance “in this life or the next”.
Clip via dumforbannade
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
