20th Century Studios Working On Three New Agatha Christie Films
20th Century Studios has had plenty of success with its recent film adaptations of classic Agatha Christie novels featuring the infamous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.
In the last decade, 20th Century Studios has released three movies: “Murder on the Orient Express, “”Death on the Nile,” and “A Haunting in Venice.” The first film pulled in over $300 million at the box office, but due to the pandemic, the second film didn’t do as well, and the third film also underperformed.
But it looks like Disney is going to continue adapting Agatha Christie’s novels. In a recent interview with the 20th Century Studios president, Steve Asbell, it was revealed that Disney is working on several films based on the classic novels.
More, yes. We have, And Then There Were None. We have Witness for the Prosecution. We’re doing Miss Marple. There’s a bunch of other titles that we’re working on. We have very close relationship with the estate.
With three completely different projects underway, it looks like Disney still feels these classic stories are worthy of new adaptations, since they’ve been done before. But it also looks like they could be moving away from Hercule Poirot’s stories.
“And Then There Were None” is about ten strangers, who accept an offer to spend some time on an isolated island. However, things get complicated when a few of them start to die, and they realise that the killer is one among them.
“Witness for the Prosecution” tells the story of a lawyer, who is troubled when a supposedly conscientious woman testifies against her husband. However, the motives behind her testimony put him in an ethical dilemma.
Like Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple is a core central character in 12 novels and 20 short stories by Agatha Christie. Over the years, these stories have been turned into many movies and shows.
No other details on these projects have been revealed, so they could still be in early development and years away. It’s also unclear if they are going to be theatrical or streaming releases, or maybe even TV shows. It looks like 20th Century Studios knows that there’s plenty of potential in Agatha Christie’s classic stories for future projects.
Roger’s Take: The three previous 20th Century Studios releases have pulled in over $600 million at the box office, but a major advantage of these films is that the budgets are much smaller, since they are much simpler to film and don’t require huge expensive CGI work, so don’t need to make as much money at the box office to be a hit, plus they are likely going to be very popular on streaming services for years to come, adding more value for Disney.
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