Amazon MGM Studios Head Offers Update on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Live-Action TOMB RAIDER Series
Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny) has been developing a live-action adaptation of the hit video game franchise Tomb Raider for Amazon MGM Studios over the past couple of years.
The series has previously been described as an “epic” and “globe-trotting” series, and Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke added: “If I could tell my teenage self this was happening I think she’d explode.”
Salke has now provided an update on the project during an interview with Variety, saying: “we think it’s going to be a huge franchise for us.”
She added: “Tomb Raider is really exciting and Phoebe is well into it and working in close partnership with [Tomb Raider general manager] Dallas Dickinson and the game producers, and it’s going to be very exciting.
“But I don’t have any [new updates]… When we look at a long term commitment to a creator like Phoebe — we’re so happy now that we retained her because she’s obsessed with and grew up playing Lara Croft/Tomb Raider.
“So the fact that she’s the creator and bringing this character to life, we think it’s going to be a huge franchise for us. She went off to do a movie, there are things that happened — if people want to go take an accounting of what deals they were able to get value out of or not, there’s still probably a lot to do there.
“But I think we’re looking at converting a lot of those deals to a very performance-based model, based on what they accomplish. And that’s been received very well because you’ve got to change with the times.”
Salke previously said: “Tomb Raider has been a huge part of my life and I feel incredibly privileged to be bringing it to television with such passionate collaborators.
She went on to say: “Lara Croft means a lot to me, as she does to many, and I can’t wait to go on this adventure. Bats ‘n all.”
When previously teasing the project, Waller-Bridge said: "There's so much I can incorporate. I mean, the character of Lara Croft was inspired by Indiana Jones and James Bond.
“So there's so much, and it just felt like the perfect final step in my own personal adventure through this kind of franchise world. I love the idea of, as Steven Spielberg describes it, the greatest show on Earth, as in being able to make things with that scale and to go on adventures that big and for the comedy and the heart to be matched but on this kind of great, great level.
“And, actually, through all the adventure stuff that I've learned from those [franchises], it's actually how to keep something feeling grounded as well as allow it to be bigger than itself in some way. And so hopefully that will all translate perfectly, seamlessly into Tomb Raider."
Within this resurgence of the Tomb Raider franchise, Amazon Studios will also be developing a new movie and video games.