Tomb Raider Film Rights Up for Grabs, Reboot Likely

Back in 2018, MGM released the Tomb Raider reboot film starring Alicia Vikander that did solidly at the box office. A sequel seemed like a sure thing for Vikander’s take on Lara Croft, which was largely modeled after the events of Crystal Dynamics’ reboot trilogy, but then the pandemic cut off its production date, and mum’s been the word ever since. Now not only is it not happening, another reboot is taking its place.

According to The WrapMGM’s now lost the rights to Tomb Raider as a film IP, and now studios are bidding for the opportunity to snatch it up. As a result of the IP changing hands, Vikander’s Croft is currently out, with nary an actor in consideration for the role, nor a director to take charge of another film. Interestingly, it sounds like Netflix’s anime series—which will star Haley Atwell as Croft and is set in the continuity of the reboot games—is still in progress.

Tomb Raider is pretty popular, both as a series of games and as a film series. The original duology of the 2000s, starring Angelina Jolie as Lara, earned nearly $435 million globally, and the 2018 film made $274.7 million. Since Indiana Jones seems set to bow out, and Sony’s got Tom Holland’s soul on lockdown between Spider-Man and Uncharted, it’s only natural that a studio would want to continue that franchise.

The news of Tomb Raider’s film version getting a reboot comes around the same time as an alleged script for Crystal Dynamics’ upcoming Tomb Raider game has surfaced. In it, a more experienced Lara is to train a group of new treasure hunters to help her with a new threat said to be bigger than herself. Whether it’s true or not, it’ll be awhile before the game comes out , and likely even longer before we get news of a new movie starring either an established or new actress to continue the cinematic Croft lineage.

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