Nick Cave's Rejected Gladiator 2 Script

05/06/09 11:42am

There hasn't been a sequel to 2000's Academy Award-winning Gladiator, but there might have been if a script written by Nick Cave had been accepted by the film studio.

The Birthday Party founder and leader of The Bad Seeds has written a novel, acted in and contributed music to films, and written the screenplay for the Australian film The Proposition, so it's not as strange as it might originally seem that fellow Aussie and Gladiator star (and occasional singer/guitarist) Russell Crowe asked Cave to pen a proposed sequel to the blockbuster movie.

Cave's script reincarnated Maximus (played by Crowe), who died at the end of Gladiator. The Playlist blog quoted a Metafilter user who saw it and described it this way:

"The resulting script included the reincarnation of Maximus as the eternal warrior, the betrayal of Hephaestus, the sickness unto death of the Roman gods, the martyrdoms of St. Irenaeus of Lyon and St. Cassian of Imola, the persecution of Emperor Decius, the Crusades, and the Vietnam war; it ended in the men's bathroom at the Pentagon."

Crowe and director Ridley Scott briefly considered the project, but it was rejected by the people with the cash to potentially finance it.

A script review that goes into much greater detail than the one above was posted on the Gone Elsewhere blog and can be read here.

Cave has reportedly completed the script for a film titled Death Of A Ladies' Man, which seems appropriate for a man whose music is influenced by Leonard Cohen.

Cave is also working with Warren Ellis on the music for the film adaptation of Cormack McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road. It stars Viggo Mortensen (The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, A History Of Violence) Charlize Theron (Monster, The Cider House Rules) and Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather trilogy) and is scheduled for release in October.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' first four records — 1984's From Her To Eternity, 1985's The Firstborn Is Dead and 1986's Kicking Against The Pricks and Your Funeral... My Trial — were reissued in deluxe versions last month. The band's most recent studio album was last year's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.

You can see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds here:

June 12 Oslo, Norway @ Norwegian Wood Rock Festival
June 13 Stockholm, Sweden @ Where The Action Is Festival
June 14 Seinajoki, Finland @ Provinssirock Festival
June 19 Tuttlingen, Germany @ Southside Festival
June 20 Scheessel, Germany @ Hurricane Festival
June 21 Dresden, Germany @ Dresden Junge Garde
June 27 St. Gallen, Switzerland @ Open Air Festival
July 3 Roskilde, Denmark @ Roskilde Festival
July 4 Werchter, Belgium @ Rock Werchter Festival
July 10 Kinross, Scotland @ T In The Park Festival
July 11 Naas, Ireland @ Punchestown Racecourse (Oxegen Festival)
July 16 Moscow, Russia @ B1 Concert Hall
July 17 St. Petersburg, Russia @ Stereoleto Music Festival
July 19 Suffolk, England @ Henham Park (Latitude Festival)