“Death is not the end” is usually a comforting sentiment but it can also be a threat. Hollywood’s voracious appetite for sequels means that even the quiet, dignified passing of a beloved movie’s main character might not prevent a franchise from steamrollering on. Ridley Scott recently declared his desire to resume the story of his Oscar-winning 2000 epic Gladiator but surely the fact that Russell Crowe’s legendary scrapper Maximus expired in the arena might prove to be a roadblock to any sequel? Apparently not. “I know how to bring him back,” Scott recently announced at the SXSW festival. What could the veteran director have in mind? And how might some other currently lifeless film franchises benefit from a death-defying do-over?
Gladiator 2: Maximus Overdrive
The legendary gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius: brave as a lion, strong as a bear and dead as a dodo. Or at least, that’s what he thought, having been reunited in the afterlife with his murdered wife and son. But hanging out in a celestial sun-dappled field stroking crops and listening to Enya is no place for a true warrior – at least, not according to the Roman god of war, who decides to test Maximus’s mettle by kidnapping his dead-but-still-sort-of-OK family, forcing the legendarily grumpy general to slice, rip and stab his way through a hellish gauntlet of undead foes before facing Mars himself in the ultimate underworld grudge match. In fact, that doesn’t sound a million miles away from Nick Cave’s rejected script for Gladiator 2, although with a bit less reincarnation and time travel.
Scarface: You Missed Me
Tony Montana died as he lived – high as a lord, screaming and waving an M16 assault rifle with grenade launcher attachment. But what if all the high-grade cocaine in his system mitigated the effect of multiple gunshot wounds, to the extent that Tony somehow survived? Here’s the twist: instead of attempting to rebuild his narcotics empire piece by bloody chainsawed piece, Tony embraces this unexpected second chance to do something else in life. He relocates from scorching Miami to chilly Alaska and launches his own knitwear business: Scarf, Ace.
Old Yeller, New Tricks
Successive generations of filmgoers have been traumatised by the ending of Old Yeller, where the beloved faithful dog – rabies-infested after protecting his owners from a wolf – is considered so far gone he has to be shot by his young master. We’ve seen dozens of other movie heroes recover from similar wounds, claiming the darned bullet went straight through, so would it really be that hard to retcon a plausible reason for Old Yeller to get even older? It would also clear the way for a potentially lucrative crossover with the Air Bud franchise.
Braveheart: Wallace’s Revenge
You’ve got to admire William Wallace’s guts. It was tricky not to when he was disembowelled by dwarves at the end of Braveheart. Yet as the Oscar nominations for Hacksaw Ridge recently demonstrated, you should never write off Mel Gibson when it comes to unexpected resurrections. His mightily mullet-ed freedom fighter may have appeared to meet a definitive, decapitated end in the 1995 fury/woad epic but Scotland has always seemed like a land with ancient, elemental power. Just get Robert the Bruce to recruit three witches to stitch Wallace back together and resume his battle for self-determination (just don’t tell him it might still be going eight centuries later).
Armageddon: Brucie Bonus
For all we know, Bruce Willis might actually have insisted grumpy oil driller Harry Stamper selflessly blew himself up in the middle of an Earth-bound asteroid just to avoid any possibility of starring in a sequel to Michael Bay’s dumb disaster movie. But what if the nuclear explosion sparked some Buck Rogers-style suspended animation, leaving Stamper drifting in orbit accumulating increasing amounts of cosmic debris until he himself became a threat to Earth? Reanimated by a specialist Nasa team but helplessly fused in meteor rock, Stamper must talk them through the precarious drilling process required to neutralise the threat he now represents. But does the abrasive roughneck have what it takes to frack himself?
View all comments >