Armie Hammer has joined Gal Gadot in Fox’s “Death on the Nile,” a follow-up to last year’s “Murder on the Orient Express.”
The studio has hired “Orient Express” director Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green to return for “Death on the Nile.” Branagh will reprise his role of the mustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Production on “Death on the Nile” is expected to begin in mid-2019, so it’s doubtful that the movie will arrive in theaters on its current release date of Dec. 20, 2019. It’s not yet clear which roles Hammer and Gadot will play.
Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express” grossed more than $350 million worldwide, 43 years after the first “Orient Express.” Agatha Christie first published “Death on the Nile” in 1937, three years after her “Murder on the Orient Express” was published.
“Death on the Nile” places Poirot on a vacation in Egypt in the 1930s, discovering a murder on the Nile River — the result of a love triangle gone bad. The book was adapted into a 1978 movie with Peter Ustinov as Poirot along with Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, George Kennedy, Jane Birkin, Jack Warden, and David Niven. The movie was not a commercial hit, grossing $14 million. It won an Academy Award for best costume design.
Hammer’s credits include “Call Me by Your Name” and “Sorry to Bother You.” He’ll be seen next opposite Felicity Jones in “On the Basis of Sex.” Hammer is repped by WME and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.