The 2018 Tomb Raider reboot aimed for a grounded origin but hit a dead end.
In short: Alicia Vikander took on the iconic role of Lara Croft in a 2018 action-adventure film that sought to modernize the franchise. While the movie achieved its break-even point at the global box office, a planned sequel eventually collapsed, leaving the future of the cinematic series to a new shared universe.
Directed by Roar Uthaug, the 2018 Tomb Raider reboot drew inspiration from the 2013 video game. The narrative follows a young Lara Croft, working as a bike courier in London, who discovers her father’s secret research into the mythical Queen Himiko. Her journey to the island of Yamatai pits her against the shadowy organization Trinity, which seeks to weaponize a deadly pathogen found within Himiko’s tomb. The production, which filmed in locations ranging from South Africa to the Lee Valley waterpark in England, emphasized a more realistic, human-scale approach to the character compared to previous iterations.
Commercially, the film performed modestly. It grossed approximately $275 million worldwide against a production budget estimated between $90 million and $106 million. While critics offered mixed reviews—often praising Vikander’s performance while criticizing the uninspired origin story—the film held the title of the best-reviewed video game adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of its release. Despite this, the path forward for the franchise proved difficult. Initial plans for a sequel, which would have been written and directed by Misha Green under the working title Tomb Raider: Obsidian, faced significant delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project ultimately stalled in 2022 when MGM’s rights to the franchise expired, leading to Alicia Vikander’s departure from the role. The rights reverted to the game companies, and a subsequent bidding war resulted in Amazon MGM Studios securing the property in 2023. The studio is now developing a new, interconnected Tomb Raider universe that will span a film, a television series written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and a new video game. This shift marks the end of the 2018 reboot’s era, as the franchise pivots toward a broader, multi-platform strategy under its new corporate home.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Tomb Raider (film)
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