‘Pompeii’ First Look: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Kit Harington Has Abs of Steel

As one of the most popular actors on HBO's 'Game of Thrones,' Kit Harington is looking to turn geekdom's love of Jon Snow into a full-fledged leading man career. That plan may have stalled with 'Silent Hill: Revelation,' but he probably has a better chance with the upcoming 'Pompeii,' which casts the impossibly pretty actor as a gladiator fighting to survive in the titular doomed city. Our first look at the film has arrived, and while we don't see any of the promised volcanic destruction, we do get to see Mr. Harington's new physique, which is, uh, impressive.

The image premiered over at EW, where Harington also explained his physical transformation and talked a little about the character he's playing:

Milo is a Celt who is enslaved when he is a child and his family is killed. There’s a time cut that happens in the movie where you see me go from a child to a man, and you realize he’s been a gladiator for a long time. Eventually he’s taken to Pompeii.

Naturally, Milo meets a girl (Emily Browning) and falls in love, just as Mount Vesuvius decides to erupt and destroy the entire city. So, 'Pompeii' sounds like it's pretty much the love child of 'Titanic' and 'Gladiator,' just directed by Paul WS Anderson instead of someone who, you know, makes good movies. Still, it sounds like it would be awfully hard to screw up a romantic epic that gets interrupted by a volcano. The worst possible scenario is that 'Pompeii' is cheesy fluff, and there's nothing wrong with that.

'Pompeii' arrives in theaters on February 21, 2014. The film also stars Jared Harris, Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie-Anne Moss and Paz Vega.