Ex Machina’s Alicia Vikander has been cast as Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot, Variety reports.
Rumours several weeks ago suggested Star Wars‘ Daisy Ridley was the leading contender for the role but Variety’s sources say Vikander was always the favourite. The delay in officially casting her was as a result of the studio waiting for a new draft of the script to be delivered.
The movie is set to be directed by Norwegian filmmaker Roar Uthaug.
MGM came aboard in 2013 and will make the film in partnership with Graham King’s GK Films. King acquired the rights to Tomb Raider from game publisher Square Enix in 2011 and will produce the movie.
The original Tomb Raider game was developed by UK studio Eidos, now part of Square Enix, and the series is now developed by San Francisco studio Crystal Dynamics which was acquired by Eidos in 1998. Over 35 million games have been sold to date and Square Enix rebooted the series in 2013 with a younger Lara and a story exploring her origins.
Paramount’s two movies starring Angelina Jolie as the British explorer were released in 2001 and 2003. They went on to gross more than $400 million worldwide.
Warner Bros. owned 20 percent of Eidos and launched a Tomb Raider project with producer Dan Lin. That project ended when the feature rights passed to Square Enix after its acquisition of Eidos in 2009 for $200 million.
The latest game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, launched for Xbox 360 and Xbox One last November and came out on PC in January. It’s set for release on PS4 later this year.
