Pompeii!

I've always had a soft spot for Meg Cabot's 2002 romance novel She Went All The Way, despite its terrible title, which meant I cracked up when I heard that someone was finally making a movie about the destruction of Pompeii. See, in Cabot's book the heroine—Lou Calabrese—is a screen writer whose actor ex-boyfriend Barry dumps her after she makes him famous by writing him a star-making role in a Titanic-style blockbuster called Hindenburg. Barry hasn't gotten any similar job offers since, so he turns up occasionally, hoping he can convince Lou to write another movie about a famous disaster:

Barry leaped up from his chair and spread his arms open wide. "There's never been a movie about the destruction of Pompeii. Picture it, Lou. A cultured, sophisticated people—artisans, really—unknowingly living on the mouth of a volcano. They are going about their normal, artisan business when all of a sudden—POW!—the mountain explodes, sending molten lava through the cobblestoned streets of their town, destroying everything in its path. Will our two young lovers—you've got to have two young lovers, see. Two young lovers whose parents disapprove of their relationship—be able to escape the magma and volcanic ash in time? Talk about a triumph of the human spirit."

Barry lowered his arms and stood, grinning down at her. "Well?" he said. "What do you think? I see me as the part of the young lover. A young Roman general, or something. And the girl could be, you know, from a long line of pan-flute players, and her parents don't want her to marry a soldier, because they want her to carry on the pan-flute business, or some crap like that. And the general, see, he can be the only person who knows the volcano's gonna blow, because the same thing happened on his native island. He's like an ancient volcanologist. So he's trying to warn everyone, only they won't listen, on account of being all obsessed with the pan-flutes—"

"Gosh, Barry," Lou interrupted. She hadn't wanted to interrupt, but Barry did not seem close to winding down, and she wanted to get him out of her room before midnight, if at all possible. "That is such a great idea."

I didn't notice any pan-flute playing in this trailer, but otherwise Cabot's description hits all the right emotional beats. She's a crappy movie sooth-sayer!