For anyone keeping track of how long it’s taken for news of a Tomb Raider sequel to surface, that waiting time might just grow a bit longer after MGM Studios just lost the rights to Lara Croft’s cinema adventures, also meaning Alicia Vikander will not play the role in the future.
The last film adaptation of the Tomb Raider franchise was the 2018 movie starring Vikander, produced by Graham King and MGM, and directing duties being handled by Roar Uthaug, which went on to make $274.7m on a $94m budget. However, due to MGM not exercising its option to retain the film rights to Tomb Raider by -at least- greenlighting a sequel project (similar to Sony and Spider-Man) up until May of this year, the studio will lose said rights, which are now up for grabs to the best bidder available in Hollywood.
As reported by The Wrap, given MGM is now fully detached from the franchise, any new Tomb Raider films in the future would act as a wholly new reboot for Lara Croft, much like Vikander’s casting had nothing to do with the two movies starring Angelina Jolie in the early 2000s. For the sake of clarification, Square Enix parted with the film rights to Tomb Raider back in 2011 when King took hold of the property under his own production company, GK Films, which is now tasked with negotiating any future deals.
Despite receiving mixed to slightly positive reviews when it came out, 2018’s Tomb Raider was mostly seen as a part of the larger wave of improvements in video game adaptations; particularly, Vikander’s portrayal of Lara Croft was quite welcome as a more faithful representation of the Square’s own Tomb Raider reboot from 2013. At the time of writing, MGM has not published any statements on the matter, and no actors have been named to potentially replace Vikander.
Earlier this year, Swedish tech giant Embracer Group got a hold of Tomb Raider’s video game developer, Crystal Dynamics, as part of a larger acquisition from Square Enix, although at least on the gaming front the holding company has not been shy about planning future Tomb Raider sequels, remakes, remaster ort spinoffs. So far, the only confirmed game is set to take Tomb Raider to Unreal Engine 5 to explore many of the settings Lara Croft fans would love to see her in.
Unlike in the past, Lara Croft actually has some competition in gaming now, as Horizon’s Aloy has emerged as a new and equally impressive female icon in video games.
Source: The Wrap