Anybody remember Tomb Raider? Show of hands? A few of you. Tomb Raider was, for awhile, one of the biggest franchises on the planet. It was a video game released in 1996, and featured a hot, leggy adventure seeker named Lara Croft. Basically she was a hot Indiana Jones-type. The games sold in the millions, and it wasn't long before feature films were cranked out. Angelina Jolie, back when she was semi-attractive and in the business of acting and not collecting children like rare postage stamps, took on the featured role. The first film was a hit, grossing nearly $300M worldwide. The sequel, on the other hand,was a disaster only drawing in $65M domestic but another $100M worldwide. In fact it was such a turd sandwich that it effectively killed off female-lead action franchises that were set to begin production(remember Halle Berry's Jinx spin-off?). Eidos, the company that created Lara Croft died, the video games floundered, and that was pretty much all she wrote.
But ofcourse nothing ever stays dead for long in Hollywood. Paramount let their Tomb Raider license lapse, and Warner Bros. was there to snatch it up. Already they are working on a reboot(nasty little word this has become) of the franchise, featuring a younger Lara Croft. Yeah, because her age was the problem. The film is being produced by Dan Lin, who is also spearheading the upcoming Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey, Jr. No word as of yet on casting.
