Amazon Orders Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Tomb Raider to Series

Television

As if you thought this might just go away. At Amazon’s upfront presentation in New York (via Deadline), Jen Salke, the head of Amazon and MGM Studios, revealed that Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Tomb Raider show has been given a series order. The show was announced as being in development over a year ago and comes from Waller-Bridge and several others, including Ryan Andolina, Amazon’s former Head of Comedy, which gives you a good indication of what the series will be like. Crystal Dynamics will also be involved in the show, and given what they think of Tomb Raider, don’t expect a whole lot of fun if you tune in. Waller-Bridge had this to say about the pick-up:

“If I could tell my teenage self this was happening I think she’d explode. Tomb Raider has been a huge part of my life and I feel incredibly privileged to be bringing it to television with such passionate collaborators. Lara Croft means a lot to me, as she does to many, and I can’t wait to go on this adventure. Bats ‘n all.”

Yeah, I’ll bet she means just as much to you as James Bond and Indiana Jones did. If you ever needed an example of someone “failing upward” in Hollywood, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is becoming the go-to embodiment of the practice. She helped destroy the aforementioned icons, the first in a movie that fell short of profitability for the first time in its fifty-plus-year franchise and the second one in a film that lost Disney $134.2 million. You would think the streaming platform that’s about to be ridiculed for its second season of The Rings of Power would want to distance itself from her and get someone who knows how to make a fun story that people like to take charge of Tomb Raider. But nah, what are a few bombs (that can be attributed to COVID by an obedient entertainment media) worth when there are woke points to score?

And make no mistake; this series will be woke as hell. Aside from the mere presence of Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a creative capacity, Crystal Dynamics’ obvious disdain for Lara Croft, the gradual removal of tomb raiding from Tomb Raider, and the general way of things at the moment, Phoebe Waller-Bridge said this a year ago, courtesy of IGN:

“There’s room to do something really quite dangerous… And if I can do something dangerous and exciting with Tomb Raider, I already have an audience of people who love Lara and hopefully will continue to. And that is a very unusual position to be in. It’s the old Trojan horse.”

She came right out and admitted she’s using Tomb Raider as a “Trojan horse” with the assumption that its built-in fan base will watch it no matter what. I don’t think anyone needs three guesses to figure out what she’s hiding in that horse of hers. What’s amazing is that Tomb Raider should be an easy win for them; it’s already got a female lead, she’s beloved by gamers all over the world, and she gets to be cool and tough and do action-hero stunts. Isn’t that what Hollywood wants? But it’s not enough because it’s never enough; Lara now has to recant her evil colonialism, have a breast reduction and facial reconstruction to de-hottify herself, and probably piss and moan about capitalism or something. I’d ask how well that worked out for James Bond and Indiana Jones, but I doubt Amazon cares; the message is the point, and the destruction of icons is an acceptable means to get there and a bonus for people who hate Western culture. Hang onto your old games, folks; those are where Lara Croft still lives.