Exclusive | Gladiator II production designer reveals overwhelming daily rewrites on original film led to a colored paper problem

You can tell a lot about a script by the paper it’s printed on.The epic action movie “Gladiator” had so many revisions while filming that it was a challenge to keep everyone on the same page — literally.

“Gladiator” and “Gladiator II” production designer Arthur Max has revealed to The Post that during the filming of the 2001 Oscar-winning film, production staff ran out of paper in enough different colors to denote which draft of the screenplay was the most up to date.On any given film or TV series, when changes are made to the script, the revised copy is printed on paper that is a different color from the previous draft’s paper.And there is a set color order that provides everyone involved in a project a shorthand to know what draft they are reading.

That color code system, set by the Writers Guild (WGA), has nine colors, which proceed in the following order: white (the unrevised/initial draft), blue, pink, yellow, green, goldenrod, buff, salmon and cherry.For those wondering, goldenrod is a yellowish gold color and buff is a light brownish yellow.

Many of these colors are never used, as most productions don’t rack up nine revised scripts.That was not the case with “Gladiator.” “It was daily rewrites and new pages under your door at night,” Max told The Post, referring to late-night script revisions that are slid under the cast and crew’s hotel room doors.“It was evolving continuously,” he said, noting that director Sir Ridley Scott “had a lot to do with that.” Scott — who began filming with only 20 or so pages — would change the script “anytime he came across a good idea,” Max explained.

“Half the time what we got under the door at night was different in the morning,” he continued.“You know, it was in constant transition.”The transition was so constant that the Russell Crowe historical drama broke the color coding system.“They ran out of different colored papers because they always issued new pages with d...