ALL ABOARD!
An all-star cast sets sail to bring Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile mystery to the big screen again—with some new characters and murderous twists.
It doesn’t take a world-class detective to deduce that one hit film leads to another. That’s why actor and director Kenneth Branagh knew exactly what to do after his 2017 big-screen version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express became a smash hit. “We saw the way the audience reacted,” he says, “and wanted to go richer and further and better by revisiting another novel.”
Enter Death on the Nile, a tale of jealousy, passion and—as Branagh describes it—“the corrosive power of lust” on a private paddle steamer along Egypt’s Nile River in the 1930s. He’s bringing the adaptation to theaters on Feb. 11 and, once again, a starry ensemble is along for the ride.
You’ll see Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Letitia Wright, Ali Fazal, Sophie Okonedo, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Armie Hammer and Jennifer Saunders—all playing passengers accused of killing newly married socialite Linnet Ridgeway Doyle (Gal Gadot). It’s up to Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh, reprising his Express role) to sift through the murky clues.
“Agatha felt it was one of her best and most personal books,” Branagh says of Christie’s novel. “There’s a sense that no boat can really take you away from yourself.” Indeed, just as the story revolves around a love triangle between glamorous newlyweds and the devastated woman the husband left behind, Christie herself was left heartbroken by the 1926 dissolution of her first marriage. She mysteriously disappeared for 11 days before being found at a spa hotel in Harrogate, England.
Christie published Death on the Nile in 1937—one of her 33 novels with Poirot as the hero—and the murder mystery has been ingrained in public consciousness ever since. Most memorably, a 1978 movie (see “Then & Now” on page 9) featured Peter Ustinov as Poirot.
But here’s the latest twist: This Nile is cruising unchartered waters, thanks to newly added characters and third-act gotchas. And if you think you know whodunit, think again. The Christie estate gave its blessing to make some changes.
“The kernel of the story is there—but the people and the motives and the aches and the agonies have been expanded and reimagined,” says Bening, 63, whose Euphemia role is an amalgam of several characters in various Christie novels. Adds Branagh, “We’re going to throw the audience . . . in a very, very entertaining and surprising way.”