Kiefer Sutherland to play bad guy in 'Pompeii' disaster flick

Actor will star as an evil Roman senator scheming to steal away the true love of the film's hero. Oh - and there's a volcano that ruins everything.

Thu, Mar 21 2013 at 10:31 AM

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Celebs, Movies, Natural Disasters

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"Pompeii," the big-budget natural disaster flick directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, has found its human antagonist.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kiefer Sutherland is in final negotiations to play a malicious Roman senator who steals away the true love of a man he enslaved. Kit Harington of "Game of Thrones" fame will play the hero, while Emily Browning will star as the damsel in distress. All of this will be set against one of the history's most legendary natural disasters - the destruction of Pompeii via the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Here's a synopsis refresher:

Set in late summer 79 A.D., Pompeii revolves around 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.

As mentioned before, this is a classic storyline with an explosive natural villain playing spoiler. Kind of like "Titanic," but with lava - something Anderson said in a 2011 interview was a fair comparison.

“There are similarities with Pompeii [and Titanic], because you go to see Titanic and you know the ship’s going to sink," he told Collider. "And you go see a movie called Pompeii, you know the volcano’s going to explode—it’s only a matter of time. So, hopefully what we’re going to do is get the audience really immersed in those characters’ stories before the disaster occurs. I thought that was really the genius thing of Titanic. [James] Cameron did such a great job of making you forgetting the ship was going to sink. And then suddenly you go, ‘Oh yeah! There’s an iceberg! Damn! I forgot about that.’ If we’re lucky, we’ll achieve the same kind of thing.”

"Pompeii," which recently started filming in Toronto, is set for a 2014 release date.

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