After recently appearing in the upcoming film Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is now turning her attention to another iconic gun-wielding treasure-hunting archaeologist: Lara Croft, the professional Tomb Raider.
According to THR, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is working on a new TV adaptation of the Tomb Raider franchise, which began in video games and has had multiple film adaptations in the past, with the most recent being Alicia Vikander in 2018. Waller-Bridge will not be acting in the series, but instead will take on a behind-the-scenes role similar to her work as a writer and showrunner for the first season of Killing Eve.
The news of the Tomb Raider show comes a year and a half after Waller-Bridge’s departure from another Amazon action series: The adaptation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith that she was creating with her Solo: A Star Wars Story co-star Donald Glover. Waller-Bridge left the show due to creative differences, while Glover remains attached to the series. Recently, Waller-Bridge has mostly focused on working behind the camera, she also co-wrote the last Daniel Craig Bond film, No Time to Die and is currently developing another show for Amazon, an adaptation of Claudia Lux’s book Sign Here.
Efforts to adapt the popular video game franchise Tomb Raider for the small screen have been made in the past. An animated series featuring Minnie Driver as the lead character, Lara Croft, was produced in 2007 for online gaming service GameTap. Additionally, in 2021 Netflix announced plans for an animated anime-style adaptation with Hayley Atwell as the voice of Lara, but there has been no further information on when or if that show will be released. It is unclear how Amazon’s new live-action series, currently being developed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, will affect these previous projects.