Trivia / Tomb Raider (2018)

• California Doubling: Most of the scenes in Hong Kong and on Yamatai were shot in South Africa.
• Channel Hop: From Paramount, who produced the Angelina Jolie movies, to Warner Bros. and MGM.
• Dawson Casting: Given it's based on the 2013 reboot, Lara is supposed to be quite young. Yet Alicia Vikander was 29 - even older than Angelina Jolie in the original movie (26)!
• Development Hell:
  • The plans to make a "third Tomb Raider movie" date back to 2003. There were various ideas bandied around in 2006, 2009 and 2011, while the game series received two reboots during this time and the brand itself changed ownership. In 2009, Warner Bros. had plans to reboot the franchise with some help from Lin Pictures, with Megan Fox attached to star. When the project died in 2011, MGM began its efforts to bring their prequel version to life. In 2013, the studio brought on Marti Noxon to re-write it and take over for Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, all of whom were replaced by Evan Daugherty, who was also then replaced by Geneva Robertson-Dworet. The countless rewrites and changes in both general plot and specific scenes came back to bite everyone once editing started and it became clear how disjointed the story was, forcing minor reshoots.
  • When it was settled on to use the 2013 game as its basis, it was already 2015 and a new series of issues, this time legal in nature, started. Then casting became a problem. By the time filming finally started, the game series was in a decline and facing increasingly worse reviews. Production dragged for half a year longer than originally anticipated and by that time Warner Bros. decided to alter it further, to make it more palpable for the Chinese market^note Since the story contained supernatural elements, they had to be trimmed down to adhere to Chinese censorship laws. When the film was finally released, the game-related hype had already faded away 4 years earlier, affecting critical responses to the picture.
  • Saved from Development Hell: The film was ultimately made. It only took 15 years.
  • The film’s sequel was originally supposed to shoot in 2020 for a March 2021 release but had gone through two directors and scripts and been indefinitely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Vikander’s pregnancy. By 2022, MGM's rights lapsed after they took too long to greenlight the sequel, and now there's a bidding war for who will take over Tomb Raider.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Vikander put on a lot of muscle to play Lara, as she wanted the character to be as realistic as possible.
• Executive Meddling: The infamous decision by Warner Bros. to alter an almost finished movie, solely to get a better chance at the Chinese market and avoid censorship issues. And it turned out to be a good call, as the film proved to be a financial success in China, allowing them to turn the troubled production into a minor financial success despite lukewarm reception.
• Fake Brit: Similar to the original films with the purely American Angelina Jolie, this time Swedish Alicia Vikander takes the role of Lara Croft, who's British (Vikander was born in Sweden, but moved to the UK at age 15).
• Invisible Advertising: Warner underpromoted the movie in the US, even regarding details of production, in spite of brand recognition. It did not look good compared to the advertising blitz of their tentpole release two weeks later, Ready Player One.
• No Stunt Double: Alicia Vikander did many of her own stunts.
• Promoted Fangirl: Alicia Vikander has been a fan of the video games well before she got the role.
• Role Reprise: In the Japanese dub, Yuko Kaida reprise her role as Lara Croft from the 2013 reboot, joining German dub voice actor Marion von Stengel (from the original games and then the Jolie films) to become one of only two Tomb Raider voice actors to reprise a role in another media from the franchise.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Several actresses were considered for the role of Lara Croft before Alicia Vikander landed it, such as Gemma Arterton, Hayley Atwell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Emily Blunt, Emilia Clarke, Alexandra Daddario, Rosario Dawson, Summer Glau, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lawrence, Rhona Mitra, Elizabeth Olsen, Daisy Ridley, Kaya Scodelario, Kristen Stewart and Emma Watson. Hayley Atwell would end up getting the voice part for the Netflix anime series.
  • Kathryn Bigelow was considered to direct.

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