Pompeii

The thumbs-up/thumbs-down gestures which stem from gladiatorial events had different if not opposite meanings to what they do today. A down-turned thumb by an official symbolized the winner burying his sword in the sand and the loser's life spared; an upturned thumb expressed delivering the killing stroke, symbolizing a slit throat. The actual gesture remains unknown - our belief in the thumbs-up/down stem from a painting by Gerome (pollice verso - with turned thumb) the surviving descriptions 'Infesto pollice' (with hostile thumb) and 'pollice premere' (with thumb pressed down) are too ambiguous to conclusively state what gesture was used in reality.

The "stone statues" of victims were not made of stone or ash, as implied by their appearance in the movie. They were actually made of plaster in modern times, from material injected into cavities remaining from bodies left in the ash.

During post production, the film company made edits to violence and bloodletting to appease the BBFC in the UK in order to secure a '12A' rating. These cuts persisted into all theatrical versions of the film released in other countries.

Featured in Someone Has to Review It!: Pompeii (2014)