Disney’s Death On The Nile trailer features Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer
The pair star alongside Rose Leslie, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, and Letitia Wright, among others
Aux News Death On The Nile
Disney has released the first trailer for its upcoming film Death On The Nile, based on Agatha Christie’s classic 1937 novel of the same name. The Kenneth Branagh-directed movie is described as a “daring mystery-thriller about the emotional chaos and deadly consequences triggered by obsessive love” (Branagh also directed and starred in 2017’s Christie adaptation Murder On The Orient Express.) Death On The Nile’s stacked ensemble cast includes: Gal Gadot, Rose Leslie, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Emma Mackey, Letitia Wright, and Armie Hammer, among others.
In the film, sleuth Hercule Poirot (Branagh) takes an Egyptian vacation on a luxe river steamboat, which quickly turns into a hunt for a murderer when a couple’s (played by Gadot and Hammer) romantic honeymoon is “tragically cut short.” Death On The Nile, which was shot with 65mm Panavision camera back in 2019, also showcases an “epic landscape of sweeping desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids.”
Arguably more interesting than the upcoming film itself is the fact that Armie Hammer is still included in both the trailer and the film. Although it appears that, through editing, the scenes with Hammer aren’t spotlighted as Gadot’s—his presence is still pretty damn conspicuous.
Earlier this year, what started with an Instagram DM scandal quickly escalated into multiple abuse allegations being levied against Hammer. Hammer denied the allegations, but it wasn’t long before he was unceremoniously dropped by his agency and publicist, and let go from multiple projects.
However, The Hollywood Reporter says Disney decided against reshooting the film with a replacement actor, citing the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions. The studio also avoiding changing the film through digital means, saying it was would be “equally as challenging considering the size of the cast and intricate storyline.”
THR also says that the studio committed to a theatrical release for the film because shelving “Death On The Nile, or sell[ing] it off to a streamer, would have been a disservice to the large cast and crew.”
The film is slated for release on February 11.
194 Comments
Wow. A guy who is a huge creeper in many ways with Hammer. Then you also got TWO anti-vaxxers in this thing (Brand & Wright) front and center.Disney just does not care if this things bombs given the controversy a quarter of this cast has on them.
(SPOILER ALERT FOR 70-year-old book)
Maybe they think that him turning out to be the murderer makes it okay, like how Joe Carnahan thought that casting Mel Gibson as the bad guy gave him a pass.
Well everything was shot before any of the allegations came to light, so they probably thought reshooting the entire movie was a bit much.
Now that Christopher Plummer has died, it would be weird to cast Tig Notaro in 3 roles.
I think it’s interesting (BOOK SPOILER) that the kind of murderer he is in the book matches him. Like, a vapid, handsome, idiot, parasitically attaching himself to various women who deserve better?
Hey! We’ve only had eight decades to read the book!
Gee thanks. Like I would have read a 70 year old book.
Mel Gibson still having allies/pull in the industry is mind boggling to me.I literally got bug-eyed seeing the Daddy’s Home sequel trailer with Gibson as Marky Mark’s character’s dad.
It’s also possible that most people don’t know or care enough about those controversies to affect their willingness to see the movie.They’re certainly not going to prevent me from seeing it.
I wasn’t going to see it, and those three plus Gal’s terrible acting put this in the hard no bucket for me.
This.
And the IDF loving Gadot! It’s a nightmare!
if only she could act as good as she looks. IDK how that woman keeps getting roles, but she is anything but wonderful.
Oh stfu. Like you would have stood up and not served in the IDF if you were born in Israel. Nothing funnier than fat overly privileged Americans judging people born into a completely different situation.
she is israeli, she served
would you talk crap about americans who served to keep you save and free?
Absolutely, without hesitation. If they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t serve, cuz I’m guessing in combat there are worse things than people talking shit about you.
Yes? Just because someone serves in the military doesn’t mean they automatically deserve to be publicly fellated as heroes.
Myself, I question the public fellatio method as a way of rewarding anyone. Dr Fauci just seemed uncomfortable when it was bestowed on him.
i prefer my fellatio as god intended it in private and long
they dont but it does mean you should not have to take crap of people who go apeshit if their starbucks latte isn’t made with soy milk
No one alive (excepting the last 5 WWII veterans) has served in the US military to keep me safe from anything you fucking goober.
I’ll have you know that my father was one of the 20 med students we saved in Grenada!
Ya I guess 911 didn’t happen, and ya know based on what you are saying we could just not have a military, until someone asks nicely if we would like to have a war. What a pathetic understanding of humans or the world you have.
and you can say these dumb things because A they did and B those who followed them have made sure you dont have to be silent. So what great contribution have you given? Raised a potted plant, complained about the rickety 3rd step of your building. I guess those who cant talk down
How many Americans in the service have actually done anything to keep America safe and free compared to those who’ve had to help out either our allies or our corporate interests? Having troops all over the middle east has done nothing to keep America free and many enlistees were sold a bill of goods.
Also, how many military veterans were were part of the January 6 insurrection? Too many.Bottom line, no, having served in the American military does not automatically bestow any immunity to criticism for being an asshat. I’ll be a little more willing to listen if they have some relevant experience, but I’ll still talk crap about Americans who’ve served when it’s deserved.
I’d argue that displacing the Taliban (for 20 years, anyway) and keeping the fight in the ME reduced the opportunity for more terrorist attacks in the U.S.
keeping the fight in the ME reduced the opportunity for more terrorist attacks in the U.S. How?
Somehow I doubt that. The entire 9/11 attack was planned and executed by a few dozen people. The Taliban is comprised of many thousands of men. Had they wanted to try another such attack, it would not have been a drain on their resources. More likely it was the domestic effort to prevent terrorism that kept them at bay in that regard. Granted, who expected that the more dangerous enemy would turn out to be the GOP? The Taliban just wanted to hurt the US in what they felt was retaliation. The GOP are actively trying to destroy the US from within.
the 9.11 attack was not planned by a few people, for it to work required planning support research, this was not a leap and see attack this was a well planned well researched plan
Al Qaeda was definitely more than a few dozen people, and the Taliban allowed them to run training camps in Afghanistan. That’s the main disruption that occurred; no more safe haven, and a guarantee that the U.S. military would go after AQ wherever they were found (e.g. Pakistan when bin Laden was discovered). Not to mention that any wannabe freedom fighter was heading to Afghanistan or Iraq, rather than trying to figure ways into western countries.
guarantee that the U.S. military would go after AQ wherever they were found Apart from Libya, Syria, Yemen… Not to mention that any wannabe freedom fighter was heading to Afghanistan or Iraq, rather than trying to figure ways into western countries. European countries aren’t Western?
How many Americans in the service have actually done anything to keep America safe and free compared to those who’ve had to help out either our allies or our corporate interests? Having troops all over the middle east has done nothing to keep America free and many enlistees were sold a bill of goods.Also, how many military veterans were were part of the January 6 insurrection? Too many.Also, the premise is flawed. America is, in many ways, neither safe nor free.
Compared to who? Do you think someone in Sweden is free and safe? Do you realize they only have the opportunity to spend all their money on social services because the US guarentees Russians won’t show back up on their lawn as they historically have. We guarantee peace, and have done so since WW2 ended, presiding over the greatest expansion of living standards, and the lowest period of violence in human history.
Compared to whom.
Based on what? Is it whom? Last time I checked language was a living thing, with no defining body.
Okay.
he US guarentees Russians won’t show back up on their lawn as they historically have When?
We guarantee peace, and have done so since WW2 ended, Most of the World disagrees, including the vast majority of the Middle East. Why? Are they hateful, stupid, or ignorant?
What’s the death toll in the region since 2001?
Do you think someone in Sweden is free and safe? Do you realize they
only have the opportunity to spend all their money on social services
because the US guarentees Russians won’t show back up on their lawn as
they historically have.While it is true that the US has provided security for Western Europe since WWII, the last war between Sweden and Russia was in 1809, and Sweden is officially neutral and a non-member of NATO.
We guarantee peace? Tell that to Central Americans, whose governments were toppled by the US (and whose death squads were trained by the CIA). Or maybe tell that to, idk, Afghanis who were literally abandoned in the middle of the night like that Onion article. The US guarantees peace for US shareholders. But if you think it’s actually spreading “freedom” and “democracy” around the world, you’re mistaken. The US also ranks 44th on the RSF World Freedom Index basd on factors like human rights abuses (see https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2021). Want more? The US ranks consistently lower than other countries based on factors like economic freedom, personal freedom, and human freedom (see https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country). Bottom line is this: the US has done a great job at turning its public education system into a propaganda machine. It’s brainwashed our ignorant citizens into thinking we’re the best country in the world… despite piles of evidence to show that we’re the bad guys most of the time since WWII.
Since history is written by the winners, the US has gotten away with claims like “we’re preserving global freedom.” But now, as we’re globally connected, we’re able to actually chat with friends in New Zealand, Australian, and even Pakistan to realize… oh. The US is a near-fascist police state where those in government and law enforcement face no real accountability. White collar criminals consider our country a haven. It’s a shit show that’s as corrupt as people say China is… except we don’t call it corruption here, we call it “lobbying.” And thanks to our shitty government’s handling of the COVID crisis, no other countries want us right now. But hey “thank you for your service, let me suck you off with our ever-increasing ‘defense’ budget despite people being suffocated under the weight of predatory medical and student debt.”
I am not going to argue with someone who has zero understanding of history. The fact you think Afghanistan or the fun the CIA had in in Central and South America as major conflicts tells me you have zero perspective. Also history is written by whoever writes it. Do yiu read the Mongols POV on their conquests no? The US army official war history of the WW2 western front was mostly written by Nazis where their pinned everything on Hitler. The world has a choice, it’s between the USA and China, before that it was between the USA and the USSR. Thankfully most of the world isn’t as blinded by ignorance as you and doesn’t think a world led by Xi Xinping would be preferable to one with a continued US Hegemony. You are judging a country like you would an individual, no country is “Good” Canada a few months ago just dug up a mass child grave of first nations children taken from their parents to “Educated”. The US could have ended WW2 by instituting a system of war reparations and crippling debt payments putting Europe and Asia under economic, and political domination that would exist to this day, instead we rebuilt them. Again because you felt like ignoring reality. We live in the safest, richest, most tolerant, and most democratic period of human history. And it is directly tied to decisions the United States has made to open up the world’s economies, force decolonization, and steer or establish democracies around the world. And yes you can have fun pointing to shit the US did like put in place thr shah in Iran, but again we are talking the whole world and everyone in it you don’t just don’t get to cherry pick, places where things went wrong and ignore things like what we did in Germany.
Bitch my father is a history professor. I’ve spent my entire life learning the US history they don’t teach in class. The US hasn’t forced decolonization, it’s rebranded it. The US policies after Reagan’s presidency especially, but starting much earlier with those Dulles bastards, have caused intense suffering and pain on a global scale.But since we, in the US, aren’t constantly meeting people who are the product of CIA-trained Guatamalan death-squad rapists, or having drones destroy school buses full of our children, we have this illusion of “US Good, everything else justifiable.”My wife spent two years living in Guatamala. She met so many people whose parents were murdered, or raped, or otherwise had their lives destroyed thanks to US corporate interests like the Dole company.I worked with a legal clinic who helped advocate for civil rights in Central and South America. Again, so many fucked systems that are not entirely the result of, but made worse by US imperialism.And now, post 9/11, the US has given itself unlimited authority to throw its neoliberal dick around.I’ve lived in China. I know it’s not a utopia. But at least there’s not the lie that it’s a place of freedom for all. It’s the hypocrisy of the US that gets me the most. It’s why I think Joe Biden is an impotent, shitty leader who can’t keep his most basic, actionable campaign promises. It’s why I refer to Barack Obama as a war criminal for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and then killing the shit out of innocent civilians. And I don’t even need to bring up the countless ways Trump was a hypocrite.When the US can’t even provide the same standard of living in regards to healthcare, education, and privacy rights as every other first world country, it doesn’t get to call itself the good guy.
Once again, little pictures, and insults, and your daddy being a history professor is somehow relevant? My Dad was a mechanic, I can tell you the knowledge isnt hereditary. Once again, WW2 was worse than 100 Guatemala. China’s Great Leap forward, with fun things like wars against the finch, also worse than 100 guatamala. You are shortsighted, and rude, go ask Peng Shuai, how a world with china as Hegemon looks.
It all depends on who you ask.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25496299Anyway at what point does your scale of bad enough to care about kick in? Considering the death tolls in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen?Pre 2001 too mind. Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam…
fghanistan or the fun the CIA had in in Central and South America as major conflicts tells me you have zero perspective. They were pretty major to the people who lived there.
The US army official war history of the WW2 western front was mostly written by Nazis where their pinned everything on Hitler. Wrong again.
The world has a choice, it’s between the USA and China, Not how it works.
The US could have ended WW2 by instituting a system of war reparations and crippling debt payments putting Europe and Asia under economic, and political domination that would exist to this day, instead we rebuilt them. Again because you felt like ignoring reality. Wrong again.
We live in the safest, richest, most tolerant, and most democratic
period of human history. And it is directly tied to decisions the United
States has made to open up the world’s economies, force decolonization,
and steer or establish democracies around the world. And yes you can
have fun pointing to shit the US did like put in place thr shah in Iran,
but again we are talking the whole world and everyone in it you don’t
just don’t get to cherry pick, places where things went wrong and ignore
things like what we did in Germany. Three times in one rant.
Do you ever get embarrassed by how little you know?
actually sweden is not a safe place with very high rape numbers and lots of violence and murder. They however don’t need the us to back them the swedish armed forces (armed with locally produced material) are quite capable of making any attack very costly
Also, how many military veterans were were part of the January 6 insurrection?About 0.001%
no it doesnt, but just remember they serve so that you can talk crap about them.
Safe and free!
Yes, gladly.
You forgot the “/s” at the end of your statement.
Yes, absolutely. The military is just a job choice, no different or more noble than any other. And in many ways, less noble than jobs that don’t require you to kill poor people in order to maintain the elite power structure. Gas station attendants, drive thru workers, garbagemen – all workers who make lives better and who thus deserve more respect than some 17 year old who gets tricked into murder by a jackass recruiter.
meh, I can’t really blame her for that. It’s how she was raised. And serving is mandatory.I can however (partially) blame her for that godawful “Imagine” video last year.
There are actually quite a few israelis who are against the ongoing genocide of the palestinians, especially in her generation and younger.
Snark aside, but that imagine video may have been an unintentional ancient curse that caused WW84 to be so…all over the place in plot.
that is valid
Puh-leez, she is the stacked talent and you will refer to her as such!
Does your use of IDF mean Israel Defense Forces?She’s an Israeli and service is mandatory. I’m not exactly sure how doing the required two year stint and getting out equates to loving it. If she really loved it she would still be doing it.
its not a matter of like or dislike, for that country its a matter of life or death
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you just didn’t know that service in the IDF is mandatory, otherwise this comment would seem anti-semetic as fuck.
The mandatory service is irrelevant fuckstick. Has nothing to do with being 37 years and old and still cheering the Apartheid.
Sorry. Benefit of the doubt withdrawn.
its not a matter of cheering, if a group of people send some of them laden with explosives into a restaurant you stop letting (some actually) them in, before the intifada the border was more or less poreus with many working/shopping on the other sidebtw, if we go sanctimonius we should also mention marokko, which has also occupied (and annexed) the former spanish sahara region, all with yes a wall and concentration camps for the locals and colonists to take over
or perhaps turkey which holds part of cyprus occupied behind barbed wire and is sending colonists there to make sure
the china part you can go fill in yourself
I mean it was made pre-COVID, so “anti-vaxxers” weren’t a thing. The Armie Hammer thing is different. But, replacing an actor (any of them) is a much bigger deal in an ensemble where the group is together in many shots, as opposed to replacing Kevin Spacey in All The Money In The World..
Anti-vaxxers weren’t a thing pre covid. Wat
Anti-vaxxers have been a thing for like 15+ years. (Well, for centuries, actually; but the modern movement the term refers to dates to the 2000s.) Anti-COVID-vaccine-vaxxers, yeah, obviously, but be careful with terminology here.
Sorry, of course you’re right. In my mind, those were simpler times when it was just a few nutjobs like Jenny McCarthy, as opposed to now when every idiot who ever listened to a podcast would rather inject bleach than a vaccine.
McCarthy is the living embodiment of being so hot that some people will believe anything you say.
Yeah it really got kicked up a notch in the late 90’s/early 00’s thanks to that hack fraud Andrew Wakefield.
Upvoted for “hack fraud”
What’s fun is that anti-vaxx is now bipartisan. Originally it was wealthy west coast liberals convinced MMR would give their children autism. Most people just laughed at them. Then with COVID you had Kamala Harris saying during the campaign she wouldn’t trust a vaccine introduced under the Trump administration and older black people concerned about another Tuskegee, quickly expanding into the “MY FREEDOMS!” conservative crowd. Never mind that something like a couple billion doses have been administered and no one’s grown a second head yet. People are weird.
You’re mischaracterizing what Harris said about Trump and vaccines. Not sure if it’s intentional or you’re just misinformed, but go back and read the original quote.
Is it really different? Because people didn’t know about Hammer either when the movie was shot.
I would say there’s a pretty clear difference between someone having stupid, even dangerous, opinions and being an actual abuser, yes.
From the the perspective of releasing a film shot 3 years ago, however, there isn’t a difference. You can’t cut any of them out or re-edit it for the same reason.At the end of the day, for the sake of a film production, there really isn’t a difference.
Anti-Vax people have been a thing for a long time, unfortunately.
You are suggesting that the anti-vaccine movement did not exist before COVID?
I mean it was made pre-COVID, so “anti-vaxxers” weren’t a thing.The vast scope of the current pandemic, and the weaponization of anti-vaxxing for political purposes, are new, and make everything worse, but anti-vaxxing itself goes back many years, at least in the US. Previously it had “merely” caused outbreaks of stereotypical childhood diseases (many of which are no picnic for kids and can be downright dangerous for immunologically naive adults) now and then in areas where these sentiments were concentrated.
Semantics, but there were anti-vaxxers before COVID, they just didn’t have any thing to sound off about.
Sadly, anti-vaxxers were a thing pre-COVID. I cut off contact with a friend who wouldn’t inoculate her baby against polio and measles. (But she did have him wear a total choking hazard of an amber necklace all the time because his skin would absorb its magical powers or some shit)
It’s ironic what a few years can do, especially if those years are 2019-2021.
The years that, in future history books, will be known as the Enshittening.
Hammer, Gadot, Brand, Wright… are we sure this film wasn’t a mass-assassination plot by a misguided do-gooder? Was Branagh originally planning to detonate a bomb on set until he got talked out of it?[this was my reaction even BEFORE you reminded me that Brand was an anti-vaxer…]
Maybe he’s a fan of suspense.
(damnit, I should have worked ‘suspense’ into my parody AC cable-car novel title somehow…)
I had no idea Russel Brand was an anti vaxxer. I’m also no surprised, it’s usually actual morons or pseudo intellectual fuckheads that fall into that camp. He’s got a touch of both so…..
they probably told him girls like the antivaxxers, because this only braincel is lodged in his left ball
To be fair I would bet most people have no idea what is up with these actors’ personal lives. I suspect a lot of people will just vaguely recognize Armie Hammer and wonder why they haven’t seen him in anything lately.
Or they’ll just confuse him with Michael Fassbender, Alexander Skarsgard, Joel Kinnaman or any number of strapping blonde guys named Chris.
I guess we need to hammer Disney to stay on brand to be on the wright side of cancel culture?
Actual Cannibal Armie Hammer?A little hard to digest this news.
I mean Walt Disney was a racist and union buster. Agatha Christie was just as racist, as well as classist and pro-colonialism, in fact works like Death on the Nile can even be seen as supporting that ethos. I’m not making an argument one way or another by the way, just noting (and often conflicting) problematic elements go pretty deep in this type of entertainment.
she wrote about what she saw, i guess she did not see much of the griswolds and their holiday plans. If you go that way you really cant make movies about the past anymore
They’ve also had it in the can for at least a year and a half now or something; they’ve got to release it at some point. Better do it now than before Kenneth Branagh punches a baby or something and makes it worse.
Just another thing to confirm my belief that Brand is a terrible person.
This was pretty much finished before Covid and the Hammer revelations. So they were pretty much stuck with what they got. They are probably just hoping to get it out there, in the middle of what may be a big film year, make back some of what they invested and then get it up on Disney+.
Hammer, Brand and Wright sounds exactly like a morally challenged law firm.
It seems like this is article is quietly equating Gadot’s indoctrination into some nationalist beliefs that I’m sure she has never really questioned until the past year to Armie Hammer abusing women?
Just in the headlines. The article itself is definitely focused way more on Hammer, so I don’t think there’s any equating going on here.
Unless there was an edit, the article is silent on Gadot outside the film, so no.
yah but ya know what they are hinting at in the headline lol
That they are the stars of the film?
Do ya? Because I have no idea what you’re talking about with Gadot’s nationalist views, and would have continued not knowing about them if you hadn’t brought it up.
sorry you missed it? idk what to tell ya there?
I wasn’t asking you to tell me anything. I was telling you that you’re the only one thinking about it after reading this article and you shouldn’t blame the writer for your weird fixation.
meh seemed intentional, still does. not that weird.
What seemed intentional? That they didn’t mention Gadot’s nationalist beliefs at all? Yes that probably was intentional, because it had nothing to do with the story.
It was the first thing I thought about too. And many other commenters.
Just because you personally hear “Gal Gadot” and immediately, for some reason, think “she has nationalist beliefs” doesn’t mean that the article was talking about her nationalist beliefs or equating them to anything. The article literally only mentioned that she is in the movie, which she is.
Never really questioning it makes it worse not better.
Seems like a projection.
In a theater, it is certainly a projection. At home it may be backlighting.
I feel personally backlit by this film!
Wat? The article doesn’t say anything about Gadot except that she’s in it.
I actually like this response by Disney. Don’t hire him again, but don’t punish the people who worked on it.
I agree and I’m glad the film is coming out. Anyhow, Hammer’s character is a jerk in the book/presumably film so people can see him punished through the character. I also suspect this film is getting a release to ride the coattails of Branagh’s likely Oscar nominations for Belfast.
And anyway, Wright and Brand’s offenses, while actually not illegal, will cause more harm to more people than Hammer’s. And to be clear, I don’t care if Hammer falls off a building and hits every brick on the way down
Honestly, there’s nothing to really be done about this one. Hammer’s part isn’t one you can really cut around and replace in post. And reshoots are pretty much out of the question, both for logistical reasons and for how much money this thing reasonably stands to make. It probably bombs, but from Disney’s POV making even some of the budget back is still gonna be preferable to just shelving the thing and eating the whole cost
they ran the numbers and the 50% of the population that doesn’t have a problem with abusing women or not believing in science will probably pay to see this.those people love ol timey shit.
At this point, it’s dump it and get as much as possible out of it knowing it’s going to end up in the red. But since Murder on the Orient Express turned and estimated $55M into over 100M US / $350-some million worldwide, I think they were at one time hoping for a nice profit here. If it would have come out on schedule in 2019 when no one knew about Hammer yet and before the world got turned on its head, it had a good chance at making some money. Now… it will be streaming soon.
I hope this doesn’t tank Branagh’s Poirot films entirely. I enjoyed Orient Express, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one well enough when I watch it someday. I just need someone else to do the casting for him. Between Depp and Hammer, dude’s really had bad luck on these.
To be honest, after the perfect Suchet adaptations, the Branagh ones just feel like sacrilege…
I’m not a believer in sacred texts, personally. IMO Branagh’s are perfectly fine for the sleek, big-budget Hollywood fare that they are…though I’ll admit I do chuckle and roll my eyes at the thought of conventionally handsome Branagh trying to pass himself off as a walking, talking egg man
I think it’s a shame they’ve gone with two novels that already had big budget, big screen adaptations, but they are the most famous titles.
There are a bunch of really great, less well-known Agatha Christie mysteries that would work well for adaptation, so I think it’s a waste to go back to the same small handful over and over.I’d really like to see the Harley Quin stories filmed, for example, and thought the recent TV version of The Secret Adversary (retitled Partners in Crime) did Tommy and Tuppence dirty. Though I see that Hugh Laurie is making another version of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (which is basically Tommy and Tuppence 2.0). That might be fun.
Yea I just dont buy Branagh as Poirot.
Branagh is trying to channel Albert Finney’s rendition of Poirot and doing it badly.
Jason Alexander’s was the best, though.
Branagh’s moustache is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I love the Suchet versions, with one exception — Murder on the Orient Express. The 1974 movie is simply the best version out there.
I know Suchet is the purest version, but I’m a big fan of Ustinov (he’s the one I grew up with) and Branagh is just so wrong for this role. I love his work in general, but not here. I thought Orient Express was so awful, I was in disbelief at how much I hated it. I won’t see this one. Between Branagh being miscast and not being able to think about anything but Hammer’s rapiness, I’d much rather re-watch the delightful original and enjoy Bette Davis sniping at Maggie Smith. I mean, you’ll never beat that.
TBH, I don’t think it’ll hurt him much. No reason Disney wouldn’t want to stay on his good side and try to make a go of this movie; he produced two Thor movies, Cinderella and took one for the team with Artemis Fowl’s release last year. Plus, with the Oscar buzz from Belfast and the fact that its a sequel to a moderate hit, it might still make some cash/he might come out of it all no worse for wear.
“Fantastic! Chris Noth has agreed to star in my adaptation of ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’!” – Kenneth Branagh, one week ago.
I hope this doesn’t tank Branagh’s Poirot films entirely. I hope it does exactly that. He’s such a pedestrian director and these movies feel like vanity projects for him. Branagh’s Orient Express was infinitely inferior to the Sidney Lumet classic. And while 1978’s Death on the Nile didn’t have Lumet directing (or Albert Finney as Poirot), you’d be hard pressed to find someone who could beat Mia Farrow as Jackie. Jackie is the female lead of this story, not Gal Godot’s Linnet, but it looks like Branagh has changed that.
My Agatha Christie-loving will go see this in the theater and buy it on DVD. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually does pretty well, there are a lot of middle-aged old fashioned mystery fans out there who have zero clue who Armie Hammer is or what he did.
I’ll end up seeing this on D+ at some point, because while I’ll also always watch a Poirot adaptation and all (and I rationalize seeing stuff with creeps and assholes in it all the time), I’m in no hurry to see it theatrically or own it because I thought Branagh (who I actually really like as a director and in a number of other roles, honest) made for a terrible Poirot. Maybe one day I’ll watch both cinematic versions of this as part of a “worst Poirots” film festival (and I was also a fan of Ustinov in a lot of other things).
Shooting wrapped more than a year before the Hammer story surfaced, and even a full year before we knew about Letitia Wright’s crazy anti-vax views. If this is anything like the novel or original film, Hammer is a lead and there’s a lot of complicated group scenes between the major stars. It’s not like reshooting a few isolated scenes for a small part with Christopher Plummer: there’d be no way to replace an actor without essentially reshooting the entire film.Not really sure what else Disney could do in this situation.
And if anything, Branagh would go even more complicated than the Ustinov version (and especially the Suchet, cause that was a BBC TV movie version)
superimpose Tig over him? Worked pretty well for that zombie movie I only watched because they splices Tig over some other shitty dude.
Also, the first sentence of the article states that this is the first trailer for the movie, seemingly making this news-worthy, but that’s just not true. The original trailer was released 16 months ago back in August 2020, with a lot of the same clips and even the same background song, just a little less Hammer Time shown in the new one. The AV Club already covered the first trailer when it released it back then, so it seems like the main point of this article is to just mention the actors’ unrelated scandals that have come up in the 3 years between filming and release (which have been and will continue to be covered extensively). https://www.avclub.com/murder-is-a-star-studded-affair-in-the-trailer-for-deat-1844774757
Yeah, there’s no way to effectively recast something like this without refilming the entire thing. Which they obviously aren’t going to do on a movie that likely had an $100Mish budget.The February release date suggests that they’re just trying to treat it as a burnoff, recoup some of the money, and then move on.
My thought exactly – this would essentially have to be a re-shoot of what looks to have been a fairly lavish production. Not gonna happen. Plus I agree with other posters that the vast majority of people vaguely remember hearing last year about Hammer being some sort of weirdo but that’s about it.
Or they didn’t hear about it at all because Agatha Christie fans tend to be older and not pop culture news obsessed. Plus not everyone shares the AV Club sentiment that if an actor has a scandal all trace of his prior screen presence has to be scrubbed from existence.
True. If that was the attitude back in the ‘60s, Richard Burton’s, Richard Harris’, and Peter O’Toole’s careers would have died in the crib.
Indeed. It may have been different if Hammer had a minor role, but his character is in the book front to back. It would be impossible to just edit him out, The result would literally be half a movie.**MINOR SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO NEVER READ THE 84 YEAR OLD BOOK OR WATCHED PBS **His character is a creep, so anyone who remembers what Hammer was accused of will likely figure it’s good casting.
Honestly, I think taking Kevin Spacey out of All the Money in the World was stupid.Don’t hire Spacey and Hammer any more – kick them the fuck out of Hollywood. But it doesn’t make any sense to try to re-shoot a movie that’s already in the can, any more that it makes sense to edit Spacey out of past movies like LA Confidential.We can just acknowledge that these terrible people may be involved in works of art that we love, and deal with that on its own terms.
The clue has always been right there in the guy’s name. Hammer – meaning that he’s like to “ham ‘er,” which obviously means he’d like to turn her into a ham sandwich and then eat her.
That’s ridiculous. By that logic, you’d think something terrible about my old friend Jake Skullfuckswomenscorpses, and he’s a lovely man.He does skull-fuck women’s corpses though.
He’s never skull-fucked my corpse.
Unless you’re one of those intelligent zombies!
must say, gadot does look a good fit for the movie, she has that old hollywood glamour
She looks like a Tamara de Lempicka painting come alive at certain points during the trailer, which feels appropriate.
I mean, everyone looks amazing in this …. it’s like Branaugh went back and rememeber how he used to shoot Emma Thompson in Dead Again. But Gadot in particular is making a case for “may not be the best actress, may actually be an old school movie star”.
Considering the plot, AH’s casting seems like a case of art imitating life….
oh ok so instead of a train murder it’s a boat murder.Reeeeaaaal original, AC!/s
Yes, this is a “murder among tourists in an Arab country” story, like Murder in Mesopotamia, not a “murder among tourists on a train” story like The Mystery of the Blue Train. (The ABC Murders, meanwhile, is just about train stations and train timetables, not specifically a train…)
And of course the murder-on-train novels and murder-on-boat novel are not to be confused with Death in the Clouds, in which the murder happens in an aeroplane…
And then there’s Murder at Fifty Fathoms about a murder on a submarine, Lighter than Murder about a murder on a dirigible, Speed Limit Murder about a murder on a bus, Murder Under Cover about a murder on a Conestoga wagon, and Two Wheeled Murder about a murder on a bicycle.Very fond of her different forms of transportation, Agatha Christie.
Don’t forget *Murder On the N Train*, which takes place on a NYC subway; *Loop-De-Murder*, which is set on a corkscrew roller coaster at Six Flags; and *WEDWay PeopleMurder*, in which one Disney guest never gets to enjoy that backstage peek inside of Space Mountain.
You forgot about Death Beyond the Sun (space rocket), Murder in the Treetops (cable car), and of course The Mystery of the Sewage-Counterweighted Funicular (self-explanatory)…[The Jet-Ski Murders, on the other hand, is by a later author, under licence from the estate]
I’d go see The Jet Ski Murders. People who ride those things are like water rats.
Larry : [referring to Owen’s lousy murder mystery paper] It wasn’t motivated.Owen : Sure it was. The guy in the hat killed the other guy in the hat.
In the continuation of that great tradition is the classic film, ‘Murder in a Very Tall Building’ (later renamed ‘Die Hard’).
You see, I wanted to respond to all this with the “Hot Air Balloon Mystery Theater” sketch from SnL with Sir Ian McKellen, but it’s been scrubbed from the internet.
This isn’t the first trailer that Disney released.
Was Armie Hammer a big enough ‘presence’ when this was made for him to have an interest in the back end? It must be weird to know your career is over but there’s also a potentially large paycheck looming. Adjust those expectations and spend wisely!
I thought he was an heir to the Armand Hammer fortune, and didn’t have to worry too much about money?
Years back (way before anybody knew this shit) I saw him on a talk show, and he said that when he first went into acting instead of law or business school to work as an executive in the family empire he was cut off from the family money. Then, when he became successful as an actor, he got welcomed back and written back into wills, etc. Not sure how his career crashing now will affect that.
Either way, I’m guessing his worst result is inheriting “only” 50 million dollars.
I don’t think I want to know about Hammer’s interest in back ends.
I’m waiting for the “Evil Under the Sun” adaptation starring Chris Noth, Louis CK, and Kirstie Alley.
Other than being a Scientologist, what has Alley done?
A shit load of blow.
She’s a proud Trump supporter, which is the worst kind.
Blech!
Writing for Mad Magazine is truly the worst sin.
Isn’t having done ‘Veronica’s Closet’ enough?I guess I’m still annoyed about her comparing Trump getting banned from social media to slavery, but she’s also repeatedly touted the false vaccine/autism connection and has said that the COVID vaccine doesn’t work at all (while continuing to claim that she’s not anti-vax).
Screw her, then. I didn’t realize she was an anti-vax Trumper
What a deeply cursed cast. But that aside, and despite me not being a fan of Branagh’s Orient Express movie, I’m quite curious to see how Gadot fares — Emily Blunt played the same character in the Suchet adaptation, and my god she was perfect (as she usually tends to be). She pulled off that snobbish quality mixed with genuine surprise at people not liking like her perfectly; nmeanwhile, Gadot doesn’t seem to be able to tap into more than 2 emotions per movie (one of those being “looking like a mediterranean goddess”).
Arguably more interesting than the upcoming film itself is the fact that Armie Hammer is still included in both the trailer and the film. Although it appears that, through editing, the scenes with Hammer aren’t spotlighted as Gadot’s—his presence is still pretty damn conspicuous.What do you expect? It was finished before the news came out about Hammer. There’s not much they can do except cut any scenes of his that are unnecessary to the story. Or are you suggesting they don’t release the movie at all?
When this flops, I think it will be mainly due to COVID disrupting theatre attendance, combined with Disney hedging its bets and not doing a full-court marketing press. I don’t think Armie Hammer was a big enough star for this scandal to have made much of a splash outside of Very Online circles (and that Very Online demographic probably wasn’t going to turn out in droves for a Poirot movie anyway).
there’s actually a massive Agatha Christie fandom on twitter!
It’s gotta be French and Saunders.
My money’s on French, parlaying her Murder Most Horrid expertise.
Id never pass up an easy payday on a millionaire.
Russell Brand? Where did he find the time between his ranting about the great reset and growing his beard?
He did them simultaneously. They just weaved his rants into the narrative.
Kenneth Branagh- come back to Marvel. Produce an update of “Excalibur” or “The Invaders” or MI-13 or whatever name is available for a U.K. based super-hero team. Make it happen soon. (Don’t @ me. I know the original Invaders were the Allies team in World War II. Although I always thought “The Invaders” sounded more like a villain group.)
Have him reboot “The Champions”. That was a great show.
Can someone explain why Gal Gadot is the hot new thing right now?Yes, she’s attractive, but she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Her best appearances were in the Fast and Furious franchise, if that’s saying anything. Her original Wonder Woman was also decent, but anything beyond that is execrable, including Red Notice, where she was horrid.I hope whoever’s pushing to make her a superstar gives up at some point.Note: I am referring to her acting abilities alone. I don’t care about her political beliefs, political affiliation, military service, vaccination beliefs, etc.
“What do you want us to do? We don’t have Christopher Plummer anymore!” – Disney
Movie trailer features people in movie!Right on, thanks guys.
Having an IDF stan doing a role in a film called “Death on the Nile” is a bit on the nose.
Hey, is Gal Gadot actually cool or interesting? It just occurred to me that I’ve never seen her do anything compelling and I don’t really think I’ve ever seen her be charismatic either. Like, I just assumed she was one of those actors who’d done some really good interesting stuff early on and then chased the Hollywood bucks, but it turns out she just turned up in the world of dull movies one day and stayed there.
To put the focus on the story itself (SPOILER ALERT) I find the Death on the Nile to be perhaps the most preposterous detective story ever written.
‘’O, how do we get an alibi? I know! We will stage a shooting confrontation in which I will PRETEND to be injured and then count on people rushing to help the crying lady rather than the man with a profusely injured leg and no one staying behind to help the man despite there being multiple people. Then, once I, the man with an ostensibly serious and life-threatening injury, am left alone, I will sprint to the other side of the boat to commit the murder, return before anyone gets back into the room, shot oneself in the foot for realsies with nothing but a pillow to silence the sound and chuck all the evidence off the boat before anyone else arrives and asks me what the hell am I doing?’’
On which planet would any two sane people expect any of this to work?