Having previously proven—courtesy of its well-received vampire whippin’ adaptation, Castlevania—that there’s precious, precious views to be mined out of anime treatments of popular film and gaming licenses, Netflix announced today that it’s set to give a similar treatment to 2017's Kong: Skull Island, as well as the long-running Tomb Raider franchise of games and films.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Skull Island show is being developed by Legendary Television, expanding out the profoundly unsafe real-estate heavily featured in the Samuel L. Jackson film. It’s sounding like the series will go light on the Kong stuff—nobody likes to over-commit—but will feature a bunch of folks who get stranded on the titular island, and probably end up having a pretty hectic time there. Brian Duffield, who previously penned The Babysitter for Netflix, will write and executive produce.
The Tomb Raider show, meanwhile, is being developed by Tasha Huo, who wrote on the streamer’s upcoming Witcher spin-off, Blood Origin. Rather than working in elements from the currently (Still! Ben Wheatley’s directing the new one, for some reason!) running Alicia Vikander live-action series, the show will reportedly follow on from the most recent trilogy of Tomb Raider games, which started with the simply titled reboot in 2013.
So far, Netflix’s anime adaptations have made a virtue out of being short and sweet: Get in, tell a story, kill some vampires, get out. We’ll have to see whether these extensions to the “brand” (apes/vampires/action heroes who act briefly sad about killing but then go on to do it a lot) can keep up that momentum.
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Misha Green is the latest person attached to direct Tomb Raider 2. Not sure what happened to Mr Wheatley.
“Wheatley” was too close to “Whedon,” so he had to go. And now I worry we may never get that boffo Ethan Frome reboot the fanboys keep demanding.
That checks out, thanks.
How are we to know the anime Tomb Raider from the other one?
maybe it’ll be called Tomb Raider: the Anime Extravaganza
A rocking theme song
Where the hell is my second season of Seis Manos though?
I wouldn’t mind if the anime got a chance to explore some of the Tomb Raider comics (imagine getting The Darkness or Witchblade guest appearances). But following the reboot trilogy makes sense, I guess. Especially if it gives them the chance to expand on that great cast of characters from the 2013 game like Sam and Roth.