Kenneth Branagh’s star-studded sequel to Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, has been given a Chinese release date. The Disney and 20th Century Fox picture will premiere on February 19, little over a week after its domestic premiere on February 11.
Murder on the Orient Express was well-received in China, grossing $34.6 million in the fall of 2017.
Death on the Nile is presently the only studio picture from the United States with a definite release date in China’s forthcoming schedule. In response to poor US-China ties and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s more nationalistic policy posture, Beijing officials have dramatically reduced the access of the US film industry to the Chinese market. Last year, the number of US studio films released in China fell by a third compared to the year before the epidemic. Several big Disney Marvel tentpoles — traditionally Hollywood’s most popular series in China — were denied Chinese release dates for reasons that were never formally acknowledged.
Death on the Nile was supposed to be released in theatres worldwide in 2020, but owing to the epidemic, it was repeatedly postponed.
Death on the Nile, like Murder on the Orient Express, is a film version of a classic Agatha Christie book starring Kenneth Branagh as the famous investigator Hercule Poirot. Gal Gadot, Tom Bateman, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, and Jennifer Saunders are among the star-studded cast members for the sequel.
When one of the passengers aboard the opulent S.S. Karnak is found slain, the film depicts the drama that ensues. The trailer focuses on Branagh’s Poirot and Gadot’s Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle persona. Linnet’s spouse, Simon Doyle, is played by Hammer. As the journey progresses, Poirot and the two gorgeous newlyweds are in for more than they bargained for. Linnet informs Poirot in the teaser, “When you have money, no one is really your friend.”
