Wanted man and legendary director Roman Polanski is planning his biggest movie yet. The man behind movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist is making an epic about the destruction of the ancient city of Pompeii. He’s got a $130 million budget to work with, which should mean lots of lava.
Variety says the movie will be a dramatic thriller set against the backdrop of a smoking Mt. Vesuvius right before and during its eruption. The story will follow an engineer working on a Roman aqueduct who finds himself wrapped up in politics and romance and, oh yeah, burning, smoldering ash. We’ll follow him around for three days with the movie ending in everything being wiped out. Rather than fixing the aqueduct, maybe our engineer hero should have spent his time finding Tom Hanks and pitching him into the caldera.
The script will be adapted by Robert Harris from his own novel, also called Pompeii. So basically, what we’re talking about here is Dante’s Peak with guys wearing sheets. I imagine togas to be extremely flammable. That should be fun.
