Fresh off co-starring in the upcoming Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is gearing up to throw her talents at pop culture’s other notable gun-toting, treasure-hunting archeologist: Professional Tomb Raider Lara Croft.
This is per THR, which reports that Waller-Bridge is developing a new TV version of the long-running Tomb Raider media franchise—which got its start in games, but which has made multiple semi-successful forays into films over the years, most recently with Alicia Vikander in 2018—at Amazon. To be clear, Waller-Bridge is not apparently planning to star in the series; this’ll be more like her work on Killing Eve, where she confined herself to a behind-the-scenes role as the writer and showrunner for the series’ first season.
News of the Tomb Raider show comes a year and change after Waller-Bridge’s departure from a different high-profile Amazon action show: The adaptation of Mr. And Mrs. Smith that she was putting together with her Solo: A Star Wars Story co-star Donald Glover. (Glover remains attached to the series; Waller-Bridge departed in late 2021, citing creative differences.) Outside of Indiana Jones, Waller-Bridge has mostly stayed behind the camera of late; she also worked as a co-writer on the last Daniel Craig Bond film, No Time To Die, and is developing another show at Amazon, an adaptation of Claudia Lux’s book Sign Here.
This isn’t the first time that efforts have been made to bring Tomb Raider—and if you’re unfamiliar, just read the title again; whole premise is basically there—to the small screen. An animated series, starring Minnie Driver as globe-trotting relic hunter Lara was produced way back in 2007 for online gaming service GameTap. Meanwhile, Netflix announced its own animated anime-style adaptation of the franchise back in 2021, with Hayley Atwell voicing the main character; no word on when, if ever, that show will see the light of day, or how Amazon’s new live-action series will impact its creation.
