Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Tomb Raider series gets a production update, whilst Mike Flanagan’s take on The Dark Tower may still be alive.
It’s been in the works for some time now, but Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s take on Tomb Raider is definitely happening and is planned to shoot early next year.
Waller-Bridge’s partnership with Amazon came under fire from some quarters for not producing anything of note during her original deal. However, her partnership with the studio was renewed and it looks like Waller-Bridge will definitely be bringing a Tomb Raider series to the small screen.
Fans of the character have been eagerly waiting for any snippets of news, including which incarnation of the character will be the inspiration for the new Lara Croft. At the time of the series’ initial announcement, the Hollywood trades were using the word ‘interconnected’ to describe the series, with the general thesis being that the series would tie into a film spin-off and a video game, the latter probably being the unannounced one that Crystal Dynamics has been working on since its purchase by the Embracer group back in 2022.
Embracer has been going through some seriously tough times though, choking on its own ambitions after trying to swallow the video games industry whole, so who knows if that project is even still in development anymore. If it is, changed timelines and shrinking budgets may have made the whole ‘interconnected’ aspect more difficult though.
What we do know regarding the TV series is that Amazon MGM Studios television head Vernon Sanders has confirmed that the TV show is still happening and is due to shoot early next year. The role of Lara Croft has not been cast as of yet.
Speaking to The Wrap, Sanders said that “we are hard at work. We’ve got great material. Phoebe is really good. We’re really excited. 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.”
Sanders also offered a nugget of information on Mike Flanagan’s take on The Dark Tower. After directing Dr Sleep and Midnight Mass (the latter being the best Stephen King TV series never written by King), Flanagan is generally agreed to be the best adapter out there of King’s work (although with Frank Darabont now actively directing again, the latter might have something to say about that).
Flanagan is said to have been working on an adaptation of King’s fantasy series The Dark Tower for some time now. The 2017 movie version didn’t really work and a TV movie also popped up in 2020 but it’s fair to say we’re still waiting for the definitive take on King’s opus.
On that project, Sanders had this to say: “So Mike is incredibly passionate about this and we’re incredibly passionate about Intrepid. There are a few things in the hopper with Intrepid with us and we’re trying to figure out right now how to prioritise. So I don’t have anything to share specifically on Dark Tower other than we are in weekly conversations with him about this and a few other pieces that we’re leaning into.”
It isn’t a flat ‘no’ so perhaps there’s life in the project yet. We’ll bring you more on either of these anticipated TV shows when news next surfaces.
