Fleabag creator and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge confirmed in an interview with IGN that she is indeed working on a Tomb Raider streaming series for Amazon’s Prime Video. It was previously reported that she will script and executive produce the series based on the long-running video game franchise.
Although the comedy series Fleabag made her a star, Waller-Bridge is no stranger to the action-adventure genre thanks to scripting the James Bond film No Time to Die and starring in an Indiana Jones movie. (She was also the showrunner on the first season of the thriller series Killing Eve.)
We asked Waller-Bridge what she may have learned from working on those two franchises that she would want to incorporate into Tomb Raider, which she characterized as “the perfect final step in my own personal adventure through this kind of franchise world.”
“There's so much I can incorporate,” Waller-Bridge began. “I mean, the character of Lara Croft was inspired by Indiana Jones and James Bond. So there's so much, and it just felt like the perfect final step in my own personal adventure through this kind of franchise world.”
Phoebe Waller-Bridge confirms she's working on a Tomb Raider series! Who do you think should play Lara Croft? pic.twitter.com/1NKtKBsyms
— IGN (@IGN) June 14, 2023
Daniel Craig’s Bond films and the Indy franchise always kept their emphasis on the characters in order to keep things grounded no matter how grand the action set-pieces got, something Waller-Bridge hopes to emulate with her Tomb Raider series.
“I love the idea of, as Steven Spielberg describes it, the greatest show on Earth, as in being able to make things with that scale and to go on adventures that big and for the comedy and the heart to be matched but on this kind of great, great level,” Waller-Bridge said.
“And, actually, through all the adventure stuff that I've learned from those [franchises], it's actually how to keep something feeling grounded as well as allow it to be bigger than itself in some way. And so hopefully that will all translate perfectly, seamlessly into Tomb Raider.”
Tomb Raider is still in early development so no star, director, or premiere date has been announced yet.
Every IGN Tomb Raider Review Ever
Amazon Games and Crystal Dynamics are currently developing a new Tomb Raider game, which aims to be the “biggest, most expansive Tomb Raider game to date.”
For more on Lara Croft, read up on how to play the Tomb Raider games in chronological order.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Amazon recently purchased the Tomb Raider franchise from Embracer. The story has been updated.
James Vejvoda is an editor at IGN.