New Movies Feb. 21-23: 'Pompeii,' '3 Days' and Other Potential Disasters

Two new movies are set to explode into wide release this weekend, but it's unlikely that either one of them is going to have much of an impact on the box office landscape, which has been dominated by animated plastic toys for the past two weeks.

The first of the new wide releases is "Pompeii," a bombastic action movie from "Resident Evil" director Paul W.S. Anderson. The movie promises a big spectacle of exploding mountains, raining lava and other catastrophic happenings, but it could be a box-office disaster, too. Pure action movies lacking in substantial star power haven't been performing too well lately—see "I, Frankenstein" and "The Legend of Hercules"—and this one probably won't be an exception. With a budget in the neighborhood of $100 million, "Pompeii" could turn into a major disappointment for distributor Sony.

The other new wide release is "3 Days to Kill," a thriller from producer Luc Beeson starring Kevin Costner as an assassin who's trying to rescue his daughter from bad guys. The premise doesn't seem particularly fresh, and the film doesn't exactly have blockbuster written all over it.

That means that "The Lego Movie" will probably continue its dominance for a third weekend in a row, proving that these days the only sure thing for consistent, long-term at the box office is a solid family film.