Ridley Scott or, Sir Ridley Scott as the British call him, has announced plans to move forward on a sequel to Gladiator. The original was released in 2000 to a very warm reception winning 5 oscars (including best picture and best actor) and raking in millions at the box office, 460 of them to be specific. The movie launched Crowe's mainstream career and, understandably, he's always wanted a sequel made and has actually tried to do it before, according to the BBC. Apparently he tried to get his friend Nick Cave (yes, of The Bad Seeds) to write the script for a sequel. He even tried to get Cave to write his character back in, even though he died at the end of the first movie. Cave was surprise at this request:
'Hey Russell, didn't you die in Gladiator 1?' 'Yeah, you sort that out.' So he goes down to purgatory and is sent down by the gods, who are dying in heaven because there's this one god, there's this Christ character, down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the many gods are dying so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and his followers.
The new Gladiator will thankfully have nothing to do with Russel Crowe descending to the underworld or killing Christ and his followers. Rather, it will focus on Lucius, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix's Emperor Commodus from the first film.