Alicia Vikander is no longer your Tomb Raider
MGM lost the rights to the video game franchise, inciting a Hollywood bidding war
Aux News Alicia Vikander
That’s the way it goes in this crazy business–one day, you’re Lara Croft, the next day you’re just some run-of-the-mill Oscar winning actor. This town will chew you up and spit you back out, we tell ya. Luckily, Alicia Vikander has the action hero training to land on her feet.
Yes, sadly, Vikander is out of the Tomb Raider franchise, and the Tomb Raider franchise is out at MGM. The Wrap first reported that the studio had until May to greenlight the long-awaited sequel to 2018’s Lara Croft origin story reboot, but the window passed and rights reverted back to the video game company and its production partner, Graham King’s GK Films.
A bidding war for the rights is now reportedly in process, and “a host of Hollywood movie studios are in the mix and put in bids,” per The Wrap. Ever slavering for established IP, a source for The Hollywood Reporter called the situation amongst the studios a “feeding frenzy.”
Unfortunately, studios tend to want their intellectual property served fresh (at least, as fresh as it can be for a story that’s been told and re-told), which means they’ll start from scratch without Vikander or the sequel’s expected director, Misha Green (Lovecraft Country).
Vikander had previously expressed excitement about working with Green on a new Tomb Raider adventure, but in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in June she saw the writing on the wall. “With the MGM and Amazon buyout, I have no clue. Now it’s kind of politics,” she said. “I think Misha and I have been ready, so it’s kind of in somebody else’s hands, to be honest.”
She hit the nail on the head, there, as the role–and the entire franchise–will now literally be in somebody else’s hands. Place your bets now as to which lucky star will be the next Lara Croft!
76 Comments
That’s too bad. Her movie wasn’t great but Vikander was really great in the role. I was looking forward to seeing her in the role again.
Yeah, she wasn’t the problem with that movie.I watched it way after the fact on some streaming service, and it took a solid ~40 minutes before she raided a single tomb. The tone was self-serious and restrained, as if the genre premise of the game was something the audience needed to be coaxed into gradually. No actor could push against that kind of fun vacuum.
It was SUCH a boring movie :/
It tried to be the Tomb Raider reboot without the Rambo-esque murderfest and actual magic inherent to the Tomb Raider reboot. Which was really weird. Tomb Raider is a franchise that has always had some outright insane creatures/plot points near the end and the movie just went “Nope, we’re going realistic with this. ”
Vikander was the highlight of the film.
Same, also to Misha Green’s take on TR.
Vikander was also great in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The movie had a couple of problems, the casting of the leads and not mentioning the organization until the very end, but by and large it was very good, and she was a large part of it.
Get a relative unknown actor and shoot them to stardom by having a really fun, adventurous script that everyone wants to see on the screen. And think about making a solidly entertaining movie instead of a video game adaptation.
Or…or, ok- hear me out – what we do is instead try to put in constant gameplay beats that only have value to the consumer if they’re interactive and in control of them into the non-interactive medium of cinema. Eh? Eh? Works for every other video game movie!
Make it one of those interactive Netflix movies.
Yeah I think they need to have a more National Treasure vibe. The Angelina Jolie ones were so stupid and not in a fun way and the Alicia Vikander one was too serious in my opinion.
So, essentially an Uncharted clone, but with a female lead.
No uncharted is just tomb raider with a dull white guy
Hard disagree there. While very much a product of its time, the second movie was a quintessential Tomb Raider outing with all the trappings and beats of the game translated rather perfectly to the screen. Signed, Tomb Raider games megafan. (Well, the classics anyway. The reboots… not so much.)
“We hear you loud and clear: we’re gonna get Paul WS Anderson to add shallow fanservice to an unrelated script, and cast Milla Jovovich as Lara Croft!”- H0llywood
Wrong. The modern correct approach is to bring in a bright young talent to play Laura, then have her discover some MacGuffin that opens a tear in the multiverse so that Jolie and Vikander can both make cameos. Bonus geek points if Minnie Driver and Hayley Atwell also cameo. The video game actresses are never acknowledged as having existed.
Tron crossover- she is sucked into… a computer game!
Laura? LAURA?!
There’s no excuse that they made so many bad Tomb Raider movies. It shouldn’t be that hard! I tried to watch the Vikander version on the plane and fell asleep 12 minutes in.
Now be honest, none of you remembered this movie existed, did you?
I meta-remembered it as “that Tomb Raider reboot that failed bigly”
I saw it at a double feature with David Harbour’s Hellboy
God, you poor bastard.
I remember it existed only because the Critical Drinker reminded me it sucked.
I remember it being boring and Vikander being wrong for the role. She came off more like Lara’s little sister than Lara Fucking Croft. The movie played like an afterschool special from the ‘90s crossed with that old Nickelodeon show Legends of the Hidden Temple..
I remembered it if only because I’m a fan of the simple pleasures of Alicia Vikander running around in the jungle in a tank top.
I, truthfully, enjoyed it.
Video game movies seem expensive to make for typically middling returns, but apparently international markets love them. I looked up the 2018 Tomb Raider and it only made $58 million domestically, but $216MM internationally on a $94MM budget. That’s nearly 4x and presumably why these continue to get made.
I think your sums are off:
$216m + $58m = $274m
$94m × 3 = $282m
It made less than 3× its budget, and that’s before marketing is taken into account. It probably at least broke even at the box office though (which would be topped up in home media and streaming/broadcast rights).
My bad – you’re correct. A solid triple (before marketing, and I never understand why that’s not listed as part of a film’s budget. it’s not free), which is good enough to justify the effort but hardly a windfall. I think the point stands – these are safe if not spectacular investments.
$78 million of the international gross was from China which at the moment is releasing essentially no foreign movies, because of the Covid backlog. That likely played a role in not shooting something before the rights reverted.Subtracting $78 million from an already average to weak grossing film wasn’t likely worth it for a company already in trouble.
Studios typically only get about 20% of the reported foreign box office.
Yeah but it’s a BIG box office.
The first 5 mins of the last TR movie just made me want to watch Premium Rush instead. So that’s exactly what I did.
Damn, I thought this was one of the most fun movies that came out that summer, and Vikander was great in the role. What a bummer
What are the odds they sub in the current “spunky charming sexy young action lady”: Ana de Armas
Frankly, by this point, she should be being played by Gillian Anderson.
Tooms Raider.
Scarlett J is the obvious choice but I very much doubt she wants to do it.Emily VanCamp?Felicity Jones?We know Daisy Ridley can run through jungles.Actors who haven’t been Disney franchises? They must exist.
Get Katja Herbers in there.
Emily VanCamp is a good choice. A decade or so ago, Gemma Arterton would’ve been damn near perfect.
Scarlet J is more obvious than Hayley Atwell?
Who knew those episodes would become infinitely more creepy 30 years later.
Now Claire Foy can play this British character, and perhaps Vikander can play the Swedish Lisbeth Salander if they make another one of those movies.
too bad because she looks perfect for the role, they just couldn’t find a decent storyline for herI bet the girl from stranger things might be the next if it end up being bought by Sony or Netflix
This never made sense to me. If she’s raiding tombs all the time she shouldn’t be surprised that skeletons are attacking her. She ought to just go home and watch The Shield or something
Vikander’s Tomb Raider is a perfect movie to watch at like 2:00 pm. Maybe the migraine is letting up, or the hangover. Maybe there’s a backlog of laundry. But here is this action movie that seems content to do its thing without inflating the stakes or putting on a bogus style. And that humility has its own charm (although I’m not sure how they spent $94 million on it).It makes for a good contrast with something like The Gray Man (connected only insofar as I saw it yesterday), which seems desperate to show off its own production values. The sets are elaborate, although I doubt most of them exist outside of a computer. The digital effects are nearly constant. Half the acting has a “look it’s me” quality that’s probably appropriate for a project like this. And the Russo’s throw in showy aerial camera movements that have no obvious storytelling purpose. Compared to Tomb Raider’s choice to trust the material for what it is, this movie seems so desperate to impress that all its swagger turns into a collection of nervous tics. TLDR: I wouldn’t have minded seeing Vikander back in the role. The world needs good laundry movies.
funny it inspired a bidding war. i guess ip is ip, but the people have largely spoken and don’t really give a shit about a tomb raider movie. even the jolie movies didn’t do all that well.
They say there’s a bidding way. But also they don’t say how high those bids are.
The bidding war actually concerns several companies paying not to have to produce the next Tomb Raider movie.
I heard Walton Goggins was in the last Tomb Raider movie so I kinda want to see it.
“Lara, you know this man?”“We dug coal together.”
Hey! Y’know, I’m really starting to think this Bezos guy has a knack for feudal level explotation of his workers and that’s his only skillset.Let’s get Vikander on Time and Motion studies and start clocking her bathroom breaks! That will solve everything!
She was never mine to begin with. The film let her down completely. Angelina Jolie, Camilla Luddington, Keeley Hawes have always been mine Crofts even if now they aren’t any longer.
I know it wasn’t that popular, but personally I liked her film’s take FAR better than the Jolie ones. I was looking forward to the next one with Vikander in it.
I hope whoever makes the next one embraces what makes the franchise what it is. They tried to make the last one into Uncharted for some reason, where all the seemingly magical stuff just turned out to be viruses or some shit. Tomb Raider games have magic. Just go with it.
Oh well. I’m not entirely sure what a Lara Croft character is supposed to be in 2022 really. Originally she was from English aristocracy and her main features were a pair of guns, a big pair of tits and a big arse.
Vikander’s films and the latter games did a lot to try to get away from that, but none of it did enough to be interesting or worthwhile.
There are surely better things to push forward, both for young girls and for the rest of society
Not sad about that. The 2018 film was uneven, with a crappy first act somewhat offset with an entertaining third act (with a nice twist). Vikander herself kind of sucked in the part – she was mostly pretty stiff and reserved, with only a few moments of charm scattered through it. A different actress would be better in the role, and they should take more creative liberties with it as well (and get someone who can do action scenes better*). I’m still bummed they didn’t get Luddington for the first film, since she A)is really good as Lara’s voice actor in the games, and B)has said she would have loved to have done it (she’s a live-action actress as well). * Although after having seen the mediocrity that was the recent Nathan Drake film, I have a newfound appreciation for just how hard it is to make a decent action-adventure film. Verbinski, Sommers, and Turteltaub deserve extra props for making good ones.
Fresh take… get Julia Butters from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and you can get 20 years of her in the role. You can see Laura Croft going through puberty, etc.
I don’t get the bidding war around this. Is “Tomb Raider” still a brand that anyone outside of Reddit forums really cares about? Why not just take the basic idea – female Indiana Jones goes on unlikely adventures – and get your own franchise going? That would probably be cheaper, and you wouldn’t have to satisfy the narrow expectations of the dwindling population that did play the game(s) and has strong opinions about Lara Croft.
Lara Croft has been played by two Oscar winners; the films wasted both of them. At some point, Hollywood will have to learn that buying an IP won’t help if the movies you make suck.
The lasting memory of this movie will be that fun afternoon where we all pointed out how weird her neck looked on the poster
Well, I see them going one of two ways. One is the original jolie way, they’ll get some big chested lady and do lots of skimpy scenes with over the top poses.Or they’ll pick someone that looks way too young, like they are 14 or something and try and turn it into a teen movie where she’ll fight adult men three times her size after they’ve called her little girl or something. Of course with an equal young man as the romantic interest. Just ignoring all game material, just wanting the name.Hope to be wrong, but hollywood has been extra terrible lately…
I would just like to say I didn’t mind the last Tomb Raider movie. Thought she was fine and the story was fun.
Lauren Cohan!
I can see it!
good riddens to that stupid bitch
Chris Pratt would make an excellent Lara. I heard his English accent blows his Italian one out of the water.
it kind of sucks that the Vikander film basically salted the earth on the only good tomb raider story worth adapting. i’m afraid they’ll have to take the cringey jolie interpretation again.
Daisy Ridley or Hayley Atwell for the win…
Alicia Vikander is incredible, and I hope she gets a real role soon. These Tomb Raider movies only exist to employ a bunch of IATSE bodies, justify tax breaks, and mesmerize idiots halfway around the world.
The first one intros with her doin coool courier bicycke sprints round east fackin landon was laughable. Turned it off after that
Wild pitch: in the original games’ timeline Lara was born in 1968, how about instead of giving us an origin story, how about we do a version about an established Lara, that pays homage to her existing history, and then cast someone age appropriate to play her. Unrelated, but Gillian Anderson was born in 1968.
Videogame movies I’ve seen that Vikander’s Tomb Raider is better than:Super Mario Bros.
Double Dragon.
Street Fighter.
Mortal Kombat Annihilation.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.
House of the Dead.
Resident Evil Apocalypse.
Alone in the Dark.
Doom.
Bloodrayne.
DOA: Dead or Alive.
Resident Evil: Extinction.
Postal.
Hitman.
In the Name of the King.
Max Payne.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
Tekken.
Prince of Persia.
Resident Evil Afterlife.
Resident Evil Retribution.
Silent Hill Revelation 3D.
Need for Speed.
Hitman: Agent 47.
Warcraft.
Assassin Creed.
Rampage.Sonic the Hedgehog.Monster HunterMortal Kombat 2021.
The point I’m making, is that relative to its peers, I found this 2018 adaptation to be stronger than most (and also that I’ve seen way too many of these. Weep for me).
I’m bummed by the news, and I think it’s to the film’s credit it is the only one of any of these that lifts direct scenes from the games, which is crazy to think about in all this time. And it wouldn’t even happen again until Tom Holland’s Uncharted. The advantage of having cinematic source material, I guess.
What possibly could have possessed you to see so many Uwe Boll movies?Are you ok? Is he there right now? Double post if you need help.
Lol, the first two were coincidences because I didn’t really know who he was yet! The rest weren’t by choice. Bloodrayne was a party movie I was out-voted on, and Postal and Dungeon Siege were when I worked at as projectionist at a movie theater, and had to watch any prints we built.
I thought Ben Wheatley was doing the sequel?
Somewhat of a necro comment, but in this case ditching Vikander and starting from scratch is the worst move they could make. She was the absolute highlight of the last reboot and a re-reboot is guaranteed to garner serious distrust and disinterest for another decade or two. A continuation of the current story with a somewhat more playful vibe would have certainly been a better course. For now it’s another strong franchise on the discard pile.