Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner in line to play Lara Croft in Tomb Raider show
Turner is in talks to play Lara Croft in Amazon's adaptation of Tomb Raider
It’s time for the new era of Lara Croft on-screen, and we’ve heard it’s going to be Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner picking up the pistols.
Turner will take the Lara Croft baton from Alicia Vikander, who played Croft in the 2018 Tomb Raider film, according to Deadline, subject to final sign-off. Angelina Jolie also famously played the antiquities-pilferer in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2003’s Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.
For those who’ve missed the recent Tomb Raider news, a TV show adaptation is in production over at Amazon MGM Studios, meaning we’ll end up seeing it on Prime Video.
The show was announced back in May, with Fleabag and Killing Eve writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge behind the script development.
This will be Turner’s most significant and high-profile role since 2019, when she starred as Jean Grey in the ill-fated X-Men: Dark Phoenix. That year was also when Game of Thrones wound down.
Since then she starred in TV show Survive, on the now-defunct Quibi platform, and — bizarrely enough — starred in a 2022 movie of the same name in 2022. Nothing has had remotely the culture-nudging impact of her role as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, a tough order in the first place.
Tomb Raider is currently more alive in TV form than it is as a game series. Just recently, Netflix released animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. However, it received mixed reviews and failed to break into Netflix’s top 10 chart of English language TV shows on release.
Amazon’s take sounds like a glossier and more expensive affair, though, with words like “epic” and “globe trotting” thrown about when the show was announced.
“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,” Waller-Bridge said back in May.
When is this Tomb Raider show out on streaming? No clue as yet. But with the show currently in pre-production, some time in 2026 seems the earliest sensible estimate.
The next big release in the Tomb Raider video game world will be the Remastered collection of Tomb Raider IV-VI, due out on February 14, 2025. Valentine’s gift in the bag, then.