James Bond studio MGM has lost the film rights to the Tomb Raider franchise, leaving Lara Croft looking for a new home on the big screen.
As first reported by The Wrap (opens in a new tab), MGM had until May 2022 to sign on for a sequel to its 2018 Tomb Raider film starring Alicia Vikander, but missed the deadline on time. Several rival studios are now on the hunt for the intellectual property, with one insider describing the situation to THR (opens in new tab) as a "feeding frenzy."
MGM, which was recently acquired by Amazon, bought the film rights to the popular video game franchise from GK Films in 2013, which itself had struck a deal with Tomb Raider publisher Square Enix two years earlier. The rights in question have now landed with GK Films, where they are said to be the subject of an intense bidding war.
Though a sequel to 2018's Tomb Raider was in early development (Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green had taken on the writing and directing), Vikander's role as the iconic action heroine would need to be recast in all future film projects. .
Before becoming a teammate of James Bond at MGM, the Tomb Raider brand enjoyed relative success on the big screen at Top Gun's parent studio, Paramount, which released two films directed by Angelina Jolie and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle. of Life – in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The films have grossed €432 million worldwide.
By the way, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Tomb Raider (2018) earned the same total of $274,7 million at the worldwide box office, although, adjusted for inflation, the former technically performed better.
Analysis: A huge loss for MGM and Amazon
As mentioned above, Tomb Raider was never a true Hollywood moneymaker, at least in the way that the James Bond and Mission: Impossible franchises were for their respective owners. But in today's ridiculously competitive entertainment industry, ownership of major intellectual property (IP) has become more important than ever to attract and retain increasingly wary audiences.
Tomb Raider is and will continue to be a prominent name in popular culture, and due to the fact that MGM is moving slower than Winston at Croft Manor, both in terms of release and greenlighting of movies under the franchise banner, the Amazon-owned studio has lost an important feather in its hat.
Plus, MGM's delay will soon turn into a rival studio's gain. The likes of Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. are certainly in on the aforementioned "feeding frenzy", while streaming services like Netflix - always the vulture of the doomed project - may also be interested in bring Lara Croft to new audiences.
However, wherever the famous English adventurer ends up, fans of the franchise can rest assured that, in all likelihood, we'll see a lot more Tomb Raider in the next five years than we've seen in the previous 10.