Having already exited the action rom-com Shotgun Wedding, Paramount+’s The Godfather making of event series The Offer, actor Armie Hammer has now departed another two projects after the social media scandal surrounding the star escalated into an official Los Angeles Police Department investigation into claims of rape and sexual assault.
Deadline is reporting that Hammer, who has denied the allegations of rape made against him, has now been dropped from director Amma Asante’s Cold War thriller Billion Dollar Spy, while the actor has also revealed that he has stepped away from Tracy Letts’ Broadway play The Minutes. That frees up his upcoming schedule completely, although he does already have two movies in the can in Taika Waititi’s football comedy drama Next Goal Wins and Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile.
The Murder on the Orient Express follow-up – which was originally scheduled to open in December 2019 before a series of delays saw it pushed to its current February 2022 date – may well prove problematic for Disney given that the movie is being pitched as a big tentpole release and Hammer’s role is said to be “significant to the point of being the film’s male lead.”
According to Deadline, Disney has no plans at this stage to embark on any All the Money in the World-style reshoots to remove Hammer from Death on the Nile, and it’s thought that any such attempt would be extremely difficult if not impossible to schedule given the movie’s large ensemble cast. At this point, the expectation is that Hammer will instead be kept out of the film’s marketing campaign, although of course that position may well change pending the outcome of the ongoing police investigation.
Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot’s Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple’s idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short. Set against an epic landscape of sweeping desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids, this tale of unbridled passion and incapacitating jealousy features a cosmopolitan group of impeccably dressed travelers, and enough wicked twists and turns to leave audiences guessing until the final, shocking denouement.
“Death on the Nile” reunites the filmmaking team behind 2017’s global hit “Murder on the Orient Express,” and stars five-time Academy Award® nominee Kenneth Branagh as the iconic detective Hercule Poirot. He is joined by an all-star cast of suspects, including: Tom Bateman, four-time Oscar® nominee Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright. “Death on the Nile” is written by Michael Green, adapted from Christie’s novel, and is produced by Ridley Scott, Mark Gordon, Simon Kinberg, Kenneth Branagh, Judy Hofflund, and Kevin J. Walsh, with Matthew Jenkins, James Prichard and Matthew Prichard serving as executive producers.
