Last November, Sophie Turner landed the role of Lara Croft in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s reboot. Additionally, recently exited Amazon TV head Jen Salke stated that ‘Tomb Raider’ would likely begin filming early 2025.
A few months later, PC Gamer claimed that Waller-Bridge’s ‘Tomb Raider’ was actually "not going ahead", while an additional source stated thar the project was "dead." Neither Prime Video nor Waller-Bridge's representatives had commented at the time.
Today we’ve learned the project is very much alive, in fact it’s going start shooting in January. That’s what Amazon has announced. So, what happened exactly? Possibly the addition of a co-showrunner, Chad Hodge. Meanwhile, Jonathan Van Tulleken (“Shōgun,” “Dope Thief”) will be directing the episodes.
[There had been] months of no new updates amid speculation about creative issues on the series which reportedly went through two writers rooms that didn’t result in approved scripts. Hodge, creator of such series as “Runaway,” “The Playboy Club,” “Wayward Pines” and “Good Behavior,” was brought in as a consultant in the second room, sources said. That led to his appointment as executive-producer and showrunner.
You think Waller-Bridges is actually happy that she’s no longer the main creative brains behind the series? Was this reboot ever a good idea? Does Amazon/MGM really want to go down this path? Angelina Jolie popularized Croft on the big screen in the aughts, but there have been so many hurdles to Waller-Bridge’s iteration, including fan backlash, that they should have been seen as red flags.
Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”), who claims to have been “obsessed” and “grew up playing Tomb Raider,” is not only supposed to executive produce the series, but is writing all of the episodes.
One of Salke’s most notable decisions, while chief of Amazon/MGM, was the $20M-per-year deal she gave Waller-Bridge in 2019, which has so far yielded a total of zero movies and shows. Not just that, but the deal was bafflingly re-upped three years later, and then it was re-upped again right before Salke’s exit. However, this time around, Waller-Bridges’ contract has been converted from an exclusive overall deal to a nonexclusive first look, and “for significantly less” money.
Salke recently told Variety that she had no regrets about the overall deal with Waller-Bridge, and that we should consider all the money that’s been dished out to her as more of a “holding deal.”
Bassim Tariq was the first one in the chair. The "Mogul Mowgli" director spent two years building out the Mahershala Ali vehicle before exiting in 2022, and he's now letting the air out on this one.