The Playlist has unearthed the fact that Nick Cave, he of Grinderman, Bad Seeds and Birthday Party fame, wrote a sequel to the Best Picture-winning Gladiator. I know you're thinking, "Hey, didn't Gladiator wrap up nicely?" Why yes, imagined reader I just made up answering a question I asked, it did. But that didn't stop director Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe from having Cave write up a trippy sequel that finds Maximus reincarnated as the eternal warrior, and follows him up through the Crusades, the Vietnam War, and ends in the men's bathroom at the Pentagon.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the script was deemed to bizarre and turned down by Scott and the studios. Cave is no plebe to writing screenplays (he wrote the excellent western The Proposition), so it wouldn't be outlandish to expect him to pull off writing the sequel.

You can read a review of Cave's Gladiator 2 script by heading over to Gone Elsewhere. They have a synopsis, and it's bonkers. It basically makes the original movie irrelevant, and it actually sounds like it would be something that could get a cult audience. [via Daily Swarm]