If you like your cup of tea hot, and your mysteries quite British, the queen of them all is Agatha Christie. Her work has served as the foundation for a bounty of TV and film projects, though there hasn’t been a starry, big screen adaptation in quite some time. But that’s about to change.
Variety reports that Angelina Jolie is in early talks to board a new version of “Murder On The Orient Express.” Kenneth Branagh will direct this latest take, and it would seem that the casting of Jolie indicates he’s looking to fill his train with as many stars as Sidney Lumet‘s Oscar nominated version from 1974 which featured Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Vanessa Redgrave, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, and John Gielgud. There’s no word yet about which part Jolie is eyeing, but Branagh himself will sport a funny mustache and play Hercule Poirot, who rolls up his sleeves and tries to solve the murder on the titular train. Here’s the book synopsis:
Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.
With tension mounting, detective Hercule Poirot comes up with not one, but two solutions to the crime.
Michael Green (“Alien: Covenant,” “Blade Runner 2“) has penned the script, and the movie will open on November 22, 2017.