For several months, Amazon Prime Video has been working on a live-action Tomb Raider series. Lara Croft was supposed to make her big return to our screens. Many fans were hoping for a faithful and spectacular adaptation. But according to the latest news, the project has been abandoned. No official announcement yet, but several media outlets are suggesting an almost certain cancellation.
An initially promising series
In May 2024, Amazon proudly announced the development of a series inspired by Tomb Raider. Writing and producing, there is Phoebe Waller-Bridge. As a reminder, she is the creator of the series Fleabag success and screenwriter of No Time to Die. At the same time, many suspected Sophie Turner, better known as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, to play Lara Croft.
Furthermore, Amazon wanted to capitalize on the success of its video game adaptations. After The Boys, The Rings of Power, and especially Fallout, the studio was aiming for a new global breakthrough, and Tomb Raider seemed to be the ideal candidate.
A chaotic development
But very quickly, problems piled up. In the end, no script was finalized. However, rumors indicate that tens of millions of dollars have already been invested.The silence begins to weigh in on the studio's side: no teaser, no official visual, no casting confirmation...
Another element reinforces this pessimistic scenario. This is the departure of Jennifer Salke, who had been at the head of Amazon Studios since 2018. She was the one who had personally supported Waller-Bridge. Both signed an exclusive contract worth $20 million per year. The deal was actually supposed to lead to several projects, of which Tomb Raider was the most anticipated.
But after six years of collaboration, this partnership has not produced any films or series. And we can assume that Salke's departure leads to a restructuring of priorities.
With the lack of results, combined with the commercial failure of some recent series, Amazon is probably forced to tighten budgets and abandon uncertain projects.
Sites like Puck and The Daily Mail then announced that Amazon had decided to end the project.
Hope is on Netflix's side
The fact that this project was killed in the bud does not seem to hinder Sophie Turner's momentum, who remains very active. This year, she is announced in several productions. Moreover, some observers doubt that she ever signed an official contract for the role of Lara Croft.
Faced with the failure of the Amazon project, fans can turn to Netflix. In 2024, the platform actually launched Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. It is an animated series produced in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics. Netflix has not yet announced of season 2, but the critical success could motivate a sequel.
At the same time, Crystal Dynamics is preparing a new video game episode. Announced in 2022, this new title is co-published with Amazon Games, which is handling distribution. For the moment, no release date has been set.
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