It’s been a long time coming, but Lara Croft is finally headed back to the big screen in next year’s reboot of the Tomb Raider movie franchise.
With nine months to go before the film hits theaters, director Roar Uthaug (The Wave) celebrated the end of filming on Tomb Raider with a short video (posted on Instagram) featuring the crew at one of the studio sets for the film. While it doesn’t reveal much of anything about the upcoming film — other than the massive green screen that was used for those final scenes — it does offer some proof that the film is indeed on its way, and with plenty of time to be tweaked and perfected ahead of its March 2018 premiere.
Directed by Uthaug from a script by Transformers: The Last Knight screenwriter Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Tomb Raider features Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, Ex Machina) as the world-famous heroine Lara Croft. The film promises to take the hit game franchise’s protagonist back to her early years for a fresh, cinematic spin on her origin.
The official synopsis for the movie offers a few hints about how she’ll become the iconic adventurer in the new film franchise.
“Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen,” the synopsis reads. “Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone. Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.”
The two previous films based on Lara Croft’s adventures, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, starred Angelina Jolie and grossed a combined $432 million at the worldwide box office.
Along with Vikander as Lara Croft, the upcoming film’s cast also includes Dominic West (The Affair, 300) as Lara’s father, Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands) as the captain of the ship transporting Lara on her quest, and Emmy-nominated Justified and The Hateful Eight actor Walton Goggins as the film’s unidentified primary villain.
Tomb Raider hits theaters March 16, 2018.