What did Russell Crowe think of Nick Cave's proposed script for Gladiator 2? By any measure, Gladiator is a good film. The swords and sandals epic ranks among the very best of Ridley Scott's career, and on a resume that includes Blade Runner and Alien, that's no mean feat. Starring Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator follows one man on a journey of revenge after betrayal at the hands of Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus. His wife and children brutally murdered, Maximus battles his way from near death to Rome's Colosseum, where he finally falls by the Emperor's sneaky blade, but not before restoring the glory and honor of Rome.
Since Gladiator ends with Maximus heading off to reunite with his family in the afterlife, not many exited theaters expecting a sequel, but the film's mammoth success forced a rethink. Gladiator 2 has endured numerous script drafts and rewrites over the years, but the idea of resurrecting Maximus from the afterlife was settled upon early, as well as the return of a grown-up Lucius, who would be revealed as Maximus' secret son - something the original movie hinted at. During this back-and-forth process, Crowe asked close personal friend and world-famous musician Nick Cave to hammer out a Gladiator 2 script, and the results were nothing if not morbidly fascinating.
In a 2013 episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast (via DenOfGeek), Cave gave a detailed breakdown of his draft, which pitted Maximus against *checks notes* the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The not-so-subtly titled Gladiator 2: Christ Killer would've seen Maximus languishing in purgatory and resurrected by the Roman Gods, who are concerned about the rise of Christianity and want Jesus dead. Maximus presumably fails to halt the rapid growth of a new religion, and this mission somehow involved killing his own son, who may or may not have been Lucius. As if the idea of Russell Crowe going full-John Wick on Peter, Matthew and John wasn't wild enough, Maximus' resurrection would've been permanent, leaving him to fight every war ever until the end of time. The final 20 minutes of Cave's Gladiator 2 would've followed Maximus through the centuries, stopping in World War II and Vietnam before concluding with Crowe in the modern day.
General reaction to Nick Cave's Gladiator 2 over the years has been amused befuddlement, and despite being the one who commissioned it, Russell Crowe echoed those sentiments. According to Cave himself, the actor said, "don't like it mate... what about the end?" Certainly, it's easy to see where Crowe is coming from, particularly with regards to the shark-jumping finale. Linking Gladiator - one of the most renowned historical blockbusters ever made - to the present-day doesn't just stretch suspension of belief, it takes a sharp sword to the head of plausibility. Cave's ending is also relentlessly dour. Even if you ignore the Christ Killer shtick and Maximus being tricked into killing his son, the idea that Gladiator's hero never finds the peace he fought so valiantly for marks an unnecessarily depressing close to his story. Fortunately, Crowe could see this, and Gladiator 2: Christ Killer never happened.
But neither was the sequel's inherent madness lost upon Nick Cave. In the same interview, the Bad Seeds singer acknowledged the uphill battle he faced writing Maximus back to life as a highly inexperienced screenwriter. He also claims to have been under no illusions that Christ Killer would reach the big screen, so simply had fun with the writing process.
Strangely, Gladiator 2 is still happening - in one form or another. As of June 2019, the project was still active, and the 20-year premise of Maximus coming back to life and Lucius being an adult remains in place. While the idea certainly isn't as nuts as Nick Cave's Christ Killer, the fundamental problem of Maximus' death remains. Gladiator 2 can't revive Crowe's character without adding a fantasy element that wasn't present in the original, and when that line is crossed, it's only too easy to abandon realism altogether.