When I think of tragedies that erase an entire city and families frozen in place by extreme heat and volcanic dust I think of Paul W.S. Anderson.

It’s logical, the guy who has somehow turned one very shitty Resident Evil film into several has the power to conquer anything. So, a love story set against a catastrophic event is small potatoes.

Small, burningĀ  potatoes. Trapped in repose for all days.

Pompeii, a Paul W.S. Anderson film. Why should Roland Emmerich have the market cornered with big, bloated “Nature Hates You” movies? The Hollywood Reporter tells us that the film’s plot (from a script by Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler) involves:

…the slave of a shipping tycoon who dreams of the day he can buy his freedom and marry his master’s daughter. What the slave doesn’t know is that she’s already been promised to a corrupt Roman senator, while he’s been sold to another owner.

Just when things can’t get any worse, Mt. Vesuvius erupts with the power of 40 nuclear bombs. But the slave is trapped on a ship headed for Naples, separated from his love and best friend, a gladiator who is trapped in the city’s coliseum. As fire and ash destroy the only world he’s ever known, the slave is determined to get back and rescue them.

Anderson has some chops so expect some fantastic shots of ancient folks running from lava.