I heard a podcast about the version of the film they didn’t make for this sequel, involving Russel Crowe’s commissioning a script from Nick Cave. You wouldn’t be able to cast Crowe again nowadays, but it sounded more interesting that what is being released: “Gladiator on steroids” is another way of saying “soft reboot of Gladiator”.
It’s the one where he’d be immortal, and it would show him fighting wars from then until the present day (like what they did with Logan from the X-Men at one point). Maybe it would’ve been shit, I dunno, but I’ll take any kind of proper sequel over a soft-reboot any day (I’m still grumpy about Alien: Romulus).