In the draft, Maximus is sent to Earth and tasked with stopping the momentum of Christianity by killing Jesus Christ and his disciples, as their movement was gradually siphoning off the power and vitality of the ancient Pagan gods. During his tasked mission, Maximus is tricked into murdering his own son. Cursed to live forever, Cave's script included Maximus fighting amongst the Crusades, WWII, and the Vietnam War; with the ending revealing that in the modern-day time period, the character now works at The Pentagon. The script was ultimately rejected and scrapped.

Just a reminder of what this movie might have been. I do want some of whatever Nick Cave was smoking when he came up with it though.

The production costs have doubled because it Gladiator 2. Twice as expensive. Twice as many Gladiators.

How the fuck do you make a sequel to a movie where (spoilers) the namesake dies at the end

Brilliant! Hopefully this will be the start of the Gladiatorverse, a multiplatform, multimedia expanded narrative universe of weaving storylines covering film, television, streaming, shorts, video games, fast food, comics, cars, social media, ARGs and, sure, a book, I guess. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say: I despise rich, well-formed, self-contained stories and I'd love nothing more than seeing the corpse of a beloved film being dragged from their dignified graves to be attached to a marionette so they can be made to dance, dance, dance forever, a dead-eyed, souless husk of what once was beloved being thrashed for maximum profit without the dangers of innovation or passion coming into play.

Or, who knows, maybe it'll be really good.

Hollywood studios seem to love shitting all over their legacies. Can't just let something be good. Right? Nope, gotta milk it until it's dead. Run it right into the ground until everyone hates it. Fuck off!