Jolie May Join Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express

According to The Tracking Board, “Academy Award-winner Angelina Jolie is in talks join the remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.”

Jolie, who has starred in such films as Girl, Interrupted, also an adaptation from a book, was more recently a voice actor in Kung Fu Panda 3 and directed and starred in By The Sea. She would be aboard the Express mystery with Kenneth Branagh, star of Scandinavian detective drama Wallander as well as another adaptation: Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. He will produce the film alongside Ridley Scott, Simon Kinberg and Mark Gordon.

Branagh, additionally the film’s director, would play the 1934 Agatha Christie novel’s main character, Poirot. It will be interesting to see whether or not elements of the narrative or production are modernized for a contemporary audience, as was the case with Romeo + Juliet.

It will not be the first time Murder on the Orient Express comes to life on screen. The Guardian says Christie was “was scathing about many film and television adaptations of her books”but was “apparently cautiously supportive of [Sidney] Lummet’s take”, which was released in 1974 and counted among its cast Sean Connery of the James Bond franchise.