Kenneth Branagh is putting together the whodunnit to end all whodunnits, and he’s just added a new cast member who may or may not have dunnit: Tom Bateman is joining Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie classic Murder On The Orient Express.
Bateman, last seen scaling the rooftops of Victorian London for ITV’s Jekyll and Hyde, will board the new version of the legendary murder mystery to play Bouc, the sidekick of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Branagh himself will play the mustachioed master investigator.
Thus far, the only official word on casting has been Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr. There had been rumblings that Angelina Jolie was in talks for a key role, but she exited the project last month.
Agatha Christie’s classic novel, published in 1934, depicted the murder of a passenger on the long-distance Orient Express train during a snowstorm. It’s been adapted a few times, most memorably in an all-star 1974 entry which featured Albert Finney, Sean Connery and Lauren Bacall.
Branagh’s take boasts an all-star producing team, at the very least, with Ridley Scott, Simon Kinberg and Mark Gordon helping it towards the big screen. The rest of the cast is yet to be announced, but signal failures or replacement buses notwithstanding, Murder On The Orient Express will pull into the station on 22 November, 2017.