"The last thing I ever wanted to get involved with is Hollywood," Nick
Cave once told Variety, but somehow it sucked him in anyway. As well as
being a prolific songwriter and singer with The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and formerly The Birthday Party,
Cave has co-written scripts for three films, including the widely
acclaimed 2005 drama The Proposition. Now details have emerged of a
rejected script Cave wrote for a sequel to Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning
epic Gladiator. Cave's biggest challenge was how to deal with the fact
that [spoiler alert!] Russell Crowe's central character, Maximus, dies
at the end of the first film - so he dispensed with realism altogether
in favor of turning Maximus into a war-mongering version of Dr. Sam
Beckett from Quantum Leap. According to film blog Gone Elsewhere, who
reviewed the script, it features "a damned Maximus paying for his
transgressions against the Gods by serving as an eternal warrior,"
meaning he has to fight in medieval and modern wars such as World War
II. Towards the end there's a "highly-ambitious, crocodile-packed
battle sequence," and a final shot shows Maximus working in the
Pentagon. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Hollywood wasn't willing to fund
the movie, but Cave doesn't mind: “I’m very comfortable in my day job
as a musician... and I have a lot to do.”
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' first four albums are being reissued on May 19 in special double-disc Collector's Editions. Which is your favorite?
--SoundUnwound
Ally Brown on May 08, 2009 at 04:51 AM
Well of the first four I only know From Her To Eternity. Presumably I should snap up one or two of the others? But my favourite Nick Cave album overall is probably The Good Son, it's beautiful from first to last.