Paul W.S. Anderson is by no means a great director. In fact, I would put the director of MORTAL KOMBAT and the RESIDENT EVIL franchise closer to the likes of Uwe Boll. But, unlike Boll, Anderson somehow makes movies that do well at the box office. His track record has shown incredible consistency amongst not very good movies. With that in mind, Anderson’s upcoming historical disaster movie POMPEII comes at me with low expectations which means it can only go up from here, right?
POMPEII will be released in 3D and The Wrap is confirming it will have a release date of February 28, 2014. Being less than a year away, casting is gaining momentum as Carrie-Ann Moss has joined the cast that already includes Kit Harrington, Jared Harris, Emily Browning, and Kiefer Sutherland. The plot, which is being touted as a romance and an action movie, will follow a gladiator (Harrington) who falls in love with a noblewoman (Browning) as the city is consumed by the eruption of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius.
FilmDistrict CEO Peter Schlessel had this to say about POMPEII:
“POMPEII is the kind of big and bold film we all love to go to the movies to experience. We believe the film’s scope and story line will resonate well with U.S. moviegoers and we are pleased to once again team with Sony on bringing a film to theaters and beyond.
While Anderson may not be Ridley Scott or Roman Polanski, who had been working on their own film adaptation about Pompeii for years, this cast seems good enough to make the into a movie to keep an eye out for. But, there are five different people credited as screenwriters, so maybe we should be cautiously optimistic.