Sophie Turner takes on Lara Croft for upcoming ‘Tomb Raider’ TV show

It should not be this difficult to tell a good Lara Croft story.  It’s just a girl version of Indiana Jones.  Replace the wit with sexy, and you win.

That’s asking too much since Hollywood has lost the ability to make a successful Indiana Jones movie.  The last Indiana Jones movie brought in about as much money as the first Indiana Jones movie, but cost $300 million to produce compared to a $20 million budget for the first one.

Lara Croft is an appealing character, but the track record isn’t encouraging.  Hollywood accounting is sketchy.  Theaters take about half of the ticket sales, and marketing is expensive.  For a studio to make money, ticket sales have to be about 2.5 times the production budget.

For the first Tomb Raider (2001):  The ratio is 2.4.

For the second Tomb Raider (2003):  The ratio is 1.7.

For the last Tomb Raider (2018):  The ratio is 2.9.

The last movie was the only one to actually make money, and that was done by keeping the production budget below the first two movies that were made over a decade earlier.

Many factors contribute to making a successful movie or TV show.  For a production based on a central character, picking the lead actor is critical.  Amazon Prime is producing a Tomb Raider TV series, and has chosen Sophie Turner to portray Lara Croft.

Sophie Turner’s breakout role was playing the attractive sister in a powerful family on The Game of Thrones. 

Her character looked regal or overcome by events as palace intrigue happened around her.  Sophie Turner didn’t display a wide range of acting talent.

Somebody thought that Sophie Turner could carry her own superhero movie.  In X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Turner showed that she can only play a little bit to either side of aloof.  She can be aloof-regal, aloof-baffled, aloof-angry, but always aloof.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix, did not do well.  On a $200 million budget, it brought in $246 million.  It lost about a quarter of a billion dollars.  It came out in 2019, so they can’t even blame Covid.

Sophie Turner doesn’t project charisma or energy.

She does have an ample bosom, and that is to her credit.  That won’t be enough to carry a Tomb Raider TV series on Amazon Prime.  Fortunately, Amazon Prime doesn’t make it’s money from streaming, so can blow the money on this project.

Lara Croft should be played by a likeable actress with charisma and energy.  The actress must be attractive, and not averse to catering to the male gaze.  Yep, I said it.  She needs to be hot and dressed hot to appeal to men.  Tomb Raider started as a video game and has a primarily male fan base.

Florence Pugh is the only actress that comes to mind.  Sydney Sweeney would be considered, but she doesn’t have an athletic physique and action-star energy. 

It’s unlikely that Hollywood has anyone who could write a quality Tomb Raider screenplay.  It would be too tempting to write Lara as a girl-boss or as an aggressive man in a woman’s body.  The writer would need to understand feminine wiles and the hero’s journey.  Instead, we’d get a butch Lara who was overly emotional and trying to be a man.

The Netflix, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft animated series from 2024, shows what modern writers would do.  Lara is saddled with family trauma and two 1-dimensional friends.  She is emotionally weak, but physically capable of superhuman feats.

We may eventually get a good Tomb Raider, but this Amazon Prime series won’t be it.