Round that very same time, Scott was engaged on a Gladiator sequel with unique screenwriter John Logan that had nothing to do with Maximus and even gladiators. Crowe, nevertheless, was desperate to current the director with a sequel he may nonetheless star in. The Academy Award-winning actor was so taken with Cave’s writing he enlisted the songwriter to “type out” the little matter of Maximus’ demise and give you a brand new battle for the resurrected Roman normal.
Maximus Is… the Christ-Killer
Christ-Killer, the 2001 screenplay’s working title, started with Maximus waking up in a darkish purgatory on the shores of a black ocean the place the dying Roman gods battle each other. It’s these petty deities who additionally inform Maximus that he should kill Hephaestos. Whereas within the Roman-Greco custom Hephaestos is the God of Hearth and Blacksmithing, he has recently been spreading the troublesome gospel of a brand new monotheistic Christian God. So Hephaestos (and Christianity) should die if Maximus is to be reunited along with his spouse within the wheatfields of Elysium, the place the solar at all times shines and Lisa Gerrard ceaselessly warbles. If that sounds weird already, wait till you and Maximus study that his spouse was capable of plead with the gods to revive their seven-year-old son again to life!
This all units up Maximus returning to Historical Rome 20 years after his demise within the area. There he reunites along with his greatest pal Juba (Djimon Hounsou would ideally reprise his position) and his son Marius, now a grown man and Christian convert, at a time when Rome was executing followers of the brand new faith. Maximus will get embroiled within the struggle between the persecuted Christians and Roman authorities and faces off towards Lucius, now a corrupt chief like his Uncle Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Lucius is particularly decided to stamp out Christianity after his mom Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) was stoned to demise for her new spiritual fervor.
Whereas Maximus, disappointingly, by no means truly crosses swords with Jesus, he does double-cross the Greco-Roman gods by coaching Marius and the Christians as troopers to insurgent towards the Roman Empire, and thus the previous gods. As a result of Maximus’ selection permits the educating of Jesus to unfold—and particularly as a result of Maximus skilled the Christians to make use of violence as a substitute of peaceable resistance—Maximus is forbidden to return to Elysium and reunite along with his spouse. As a substitute he’s “gifted” immortal life as an everlasting warrior that may ceaselessly doom humanity by encouraging warfare.
This idea is visualized actually with a frenetic montage of Maximus main a military not solely in Historical Rome, however Persia through the Crusades, amongst tanks in World Conflict I, and into the jungles of Vietnam. The ultimate scene leaves Maximus sitting at a head of a gathering desk within the Pentagon, hunched over a laptop computer and planning a present-day struggle.
Why It Didn’t Get Made
“Don’t prefer it, mate,” Crowe reportedly advised Cave, who harbors no regrets.
