Lifelong Tomb Raider fan Phoebe Waller-Bridge has opened up about adapting Lara Croft for her upcoming Prime Video sequence.
Back in April — earlier than the continued Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike — Waller-Bridge sat down with Joy Press of Vanity Fair. During the newly-published interview, Waller-Bridge mentioned growing the upcoming Tomb Raider sequence, in addition to her teenage dependancy to the unique video video games. “My parents were very smart because they didn’t actually limit me. They could sense that I was going to just game myself into the ground, and I did,” Waller-Bridge stated. “I packed the PlayStation away, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to not do that because I’ve got to write and read and do other stuff.’”
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s love for Lara Croft
Despite hanging up her PlayStation controller, Waller-Bridge maintained a love for the character of Lara Croft. “She had an attitude. She was very deliberate in what she wanted to do,” the Solo: A Star Wars Story alum stated. “That all changed when they realized that they could market her to be a sex symbol.” Nevertheless, Waller-Bridge dove again into Tomb Raider throughout the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. So, it appeared like destiny when Amazon requested her to pen a small-screen adaptation.
“God, it literally felt like that teenager in me saying: Do right by her, do right by Lara!” Waller-Bridge recalled. “The opportunity to have, as we were talking earlier, a female action character … Having worked on [James] Bond and having worked as an actor on [Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny], I feel like I’ve been building up to this. What if I could take the reins on an action franchise, with everything I’ve learned, with a character I adore, and also just bring back some of that ’90s vibe?”
Phoebe Waller Bridge’s ideas on rebooting Tomb Raider
Press requested Waller-Bridge if she was hesitant to contribute to the present development of remakes and reboots in Hollywood. “I feel like when you’re working in the industry, you’ve got to ride the waves and lean in,” Waller-Bridge replied. “There’s room to do something really quite dangerous. And if I can do something dangerous and exciting with Tomb Raider, I already have an audience of people who love Lara and hopefully will continue to. And that is a very unusual position to be in. It’s the old Trojan horse.”
Notably, as a author, Waller-Bridge is not any stranger to referencing breasts in her works. However, there was apparently a heated debate within the Tomb Raider writers’ room concerning whether or not Lara ought to have her traditional busty determine, or an athletic construct consistent with the extra trendy video games. Waller-Bridge’s stance on the matter is obvious. “She’s a tomb raider, so she’s incredibly fit,” she stated. “She has to squeeze through tiny rock crevices all the time. It is a different experience squeezing through a small rock crevice when you have larger boobs than if you have smaller boobs.”
Tomb Raider returns to live-action
The Tomb Raider online game franchise consists of 12 main-series video games and plenty of spin-offs. The unique sport launched in 1996 and spawned eight follow-ups by means of 2008. The franchise was rebooted with a brand new main-series sport in 2013, which might show to be the primary installment in a trilogy that concluded in 2018.
The franchise was first tailored into live-action through the 2001 Paramount movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which was based mostly on the early video games and starred Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. Jolie reprised her function for the 2003 sequel, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life. MGM and Warner Bros. rebooted the live-action sequence with the 2018 movie Tomb Raider. Starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, the 2018 movie was based totally on the 2013 reboot sport.
In January 2023, information broke that Amazon — the brand new writer of the Tomb Raider video video games — had tapped Waller-Bridge to pen a live-action sequence adaptation for Prime Video. Amazon can also be reportedly growing a brand new Tomb Raider movie, which is able to tie into each the Prime Video sequence and the subsequent Tomb Raider sport as a part of a shared universe.
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