This brings to mind an early-90s movie called "The Judas Project" that I watched in prison, basically trying to set the story of Jesus in modern times to make it more relatable. Problem was, it was set in America in a time of relative peace (the Cold War had ended just a few years before), so Jesse's (the Jesus character) threat to those in power was pretty much summed up as "he's causing unrest", with no indication of what kind of unrest shown in the movie itself. In the movie, the crucifixion is carried out in secret, pretty much like a Mafia hit, as opposed to having the backing of law that it did in the Bible itself. The Pilate character also left after telling the priest, "if you want him dead, do it yourself," so the priest (who had the most stereotypically Jewish features I've ever seen) stage-managed the whole thing and ended up fried with a fireball from Heaven for his trouble.
Fact is, though, that crucifixion wasn't a common form of execution for the Romans. Its use varied depending on time and place, but for the most part, it was reserved for those the Romans felt were a threat to their power. So while the story in the Bible tries to portray it as Jesus' execution being arranged by Caiaphas and the other priests for blasphemy, it really only makes sense for Pilate to engage in that form of execution if he felt that A) Jesus was engaging in sedition against the Roman state or B) that killing Jesus would quell the unrest that was stirring up AGAINST him, thus helping to maintain order. If it were as simple as a blasphemy charge, he would have told the priests, "Why don't you just stone him the way you do for other blasphemers?"