British actor-comedian Russell Brand is in negotiations to board the cast of Death on the Nile, Fox's follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express. Kenneth Branagh, who helmed the 2017 film, will return to the director's chair for the new project and reprise his role of the mustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Based on celebrated author Agatha Christie's novel of the same name, the follow-up will chronicle Poirot's vacation in Egypt where he discovers a murder on the banks of river Nile as a love triangle goes awry. If finalised, Brand, best known for starring in films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall Get Him to the Greek, will join Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright and Armie Hammer in the project. The project, being written by Michael Green, is scheduled to start filming at the end of September. The movie has a release date of December 20, 2020, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Death on the Nile" has been previously adapted into a 1978 film, with Peter Ustinov as Poirot along with Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, among others.
