Armie Hammer, center left, with Gal Gadot, stars in “Death on the Nile” with Kenneth Branagh, far right.
Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox — now 20th Century Studios — hasn’t been kind to the films left over from the previous regime.
Example: Ridley Scott’s excellent “The Last Duel,” a hugely expensive historical drama starring Jodie Comer, Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Ben Affleck, was mismarketed (and undermarketed) and flopped at the box office last October. Never-ending tweets from its loudest fans (like me) couldn’t make it an awards-season darling once it came to HBO Max.
Another example: “Death on the Nile,” a second Agatha Christie adaptation by Kenneth Branagh following the 2017 success of “Murder on the Orient Express,” limped into theaters with little fanfare on Feb. 11, near the end of the omicron surge, and pulled in just north of $40 million in North America, far short of the previous film’s $102 million.
But like best-picture nominee “Nightmare Alley” before it, “Death on the Nile” will float its way to multiple streaming platforms in what feels like record time, appearing Tuesday on Hulu and HBO Max home pages. The whodunit aboard a steam ship stars Gal Gadot (“Wonder Woman”), Letitia Wright (“Black Panther”), Annette Bening (“Captain Marvel”) and Branagh himself (director of “Thor”) as Christie’s investigative superhero, Hercule Poirot.
If you want to catch up with Branagh’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” you’ll have to settle for FX — or rent it digitally from iTunes, Vudu and the like … but you can check out the 1974 adaptation with Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall and a dozen other great actors on HBO Max and Paramount+.
Another short wait
“The Batman” flew past the $600 million mark at the global box office this week, the first huge hit of 2022 and another well-received reboot for what might be the most popular fictional character of the last 35 years. If the nearly three-hour running time on director Matt Reeves’ film is keeping you home, fear not — you won’t have to wait long to watch it there.
Deadline.com reported last week that “The Batman” will hit HBO Max on April 19, 46 days after opening in theaters. You can expect a similarly short interval for the rest of Warner Bros.’ 2022 slate, which includes “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” (April 15), Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” (June 24), the Stephen King adaptation “Salem’s Lot” (Sept. 9), and superhero offerings “Black Adam” (Oct. 21) and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (Dec. 16).
• Sean Stangland is an assistant news editor who ventured back to a theater this week for Tom Holland’s “Uncharted,” whose final action sequence is worth the price of admission.
