Amazon has enlisted Phoebe Waller-Bridge to helm a TV series based on the Tomb Raider video game franchise, per the Hollywood Reporter.
While Waller-Bridge, who’s best known for starring in Prime Video’s Emmy-winning series Fleabag, will produce and write the Tomb Raider adaption, she will not star in the series. Waller-Bridge will take on the project with Amazon Studios’ former Head of Comedy Ryan Andolina and Amanda Greenblatt.
Meanwhile, Deadline reports Amazon is also developing a new Tomb Raider film. Angelina Jolie starred as Lara Croft in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2003’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, both of which were released by Paramount Pictures.
Back in July, a bidding war erupted to acquire the rights to Tomb Raider, after MGM returned the rights to producer Graham King and his GK Films. As a result, Alicia Vikander, who starred as Lara Croft in 2018’s Tomb Raider, is no longer attached to the project. A sequel to the 2018 film had been in development since 2019, with Vikander set to reprise her role as Lara Craft. Meanwhile, Ben Wheatley, in addition to Lovecraft Country’s Misha Green, had both been attached to direct the potential sequel.
Vikander spoke with Entertainment Weekly last summer about her desire to play Lara Croft in a future film.
“With the MGM and Amazon buyout, I have no clue. Now it’s kind of politics,” Vikander shared. “I think Misha [Green] and I have been ready, so it’s kind of in somebody else’s hands, to be honest.”
She added, “I hope we go and make another movie. Because of the pandemic, we had plans of shooting this film, and now it’s been one and a half years, but Misha Green is on board, and she’s writing a draft right now.”
