Kenneth Branagh on developing an Agatha Christie cinematic universe

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS may have received mixed reviews from critics, but it has made a tidy sum at the box-office which prompted Twentieth Century Fox to put a sequel into development. Based upon Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile," the sequel will see Kenneth Branagh reprising his role of Hercule Poirot, and as Christie wrote a great many Poirot mysteries, the possibility exists for a Agatha Christie cinematic universe. While speaking with the Associated Press, Branagh commented that such a universe is something he has thought about.

I think there are possibilities, aren’t there? With 66 books and short stories and plays, she — and she often brings people together in her own books actually, so innately — she enjoyed that. You feel as though there is a world — just like with Dickens, there’s a complete world that she’s created — certain kinds of characters who live in her world — that I think has real possibilities.

Kenneth Branagh hasn't run that idea past Fox just yet, but says that he bets that "they’ve been thinking about it" already. "Death on the Nile" will find the famed Belgian detective on vacation in Egypt when he becomes involved in a love-triangle gone murderously wrong. As with MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, much of the sequel will take place in one location, this time on the Karnak, a paddle steamer touring Egypt along the Nile River. Branagh also teased that the sequel may very well bring back some "old friends" to explore "primal human emotions" like "obsessive love and jealousy and sex" that make for a "very dangerous atmosphere." Michael Green, who wrote MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, has returned to pen the script, and, in addition to returning as Hercule Poirot, Kenneth Branagh is also expected to direct the sequel as well.

Which member of the MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS cast would you like to see make a return?