Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: amazon, Lara Croft, prime video, Tomb raider

Tomb Raider: Amazon TV Head Offers Series, Lara Croft Casting Update

Amazon TV's Vernon Sanders offered an update on Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Tomb Raider series and when the search for Lara Croft will begin.

First announced in January 2023, the word came down back in May of this year that archaeologist and adventurer Lara Croft was officially coming to Amazon's Prime Video as a live-action series. Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) is writing & executive-producing the project, based on the popular "Tomb Raider" video game franchise and stemming from a deal between Crystal Dynamics (who will produce) and Amazon MGM Studios. Making the press rounds this week in support of how well Amazon did with Emmy nominations, Vernon Sanders, Head of TV, offered an update on how things are looking and when production could get underway. "We are hard at work. We've got great material. Phoebe [Waller-Bridge] is really good. We're really excited," Sanders shared during an interview with The Wrap. "My guess is we'll spend the rest of this year getting things prepped so that we can start production early next year. We've got to find our Lara Croft so that global-wide search will start sooner rather than later."

In a June 2023 profile interview with Vanity Fair, Waller-Bridge discussed her life-long connection with the video game franchise, her understanding of the responsibility that comes with bringing Lara Croft to life, and how the franchise is ripe for a "dangerous and exciting" take.

Waller-Bridge on Finding "Really Quite Dangerous" Take Fans Will Connect With: "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."

Waller-Bridge on Her Parents Letting Her Lara Croft Flag Fly: "My parents were very smart because they didn't actually limit me [playing Tomb Raider]. They could sense that I was going to just game myself into the ground, and I did. 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.' "

Waller-Bridge on Revisiting "Tomb Raider" During COVID-19 Pandemic: "God, it literally felt like that teenager in me saying: do right by her, do right by Lara!" The opportunity to have, as we were talking earlier, a female action character…. Having worked on Bond and having worked as an actor on 'Indy,' I feel like I've been building up to this."

Waller-Bridge on Her "Big Roaring Instincts" Now In Play: "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?" Waller-Bridge shared – before adding, "It's such a wonderful feeling to think you know what to do [with a project like Tomb Raider]"

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