Guess Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Tomb Raider might actually happen after all

Will anything actually come from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s partnership with Amazon? She’s been under an overall deal at Prime Video since 2019 (her “mid eight-figure” deal was renewed for another three years in 2023) and has produced… nothing. There was an untitled project with no details that seems to have slipped into the ether. There was Mr. And Mrs. Smith, which went on without her. It’s all a bit disappointing from one of our most promising television auteurs (in addition to Fleabag, she gave us the underrated Crashing and the best bits of Killing Eve). Maybe the long-gestating Tomb Raider television series is what will finally put her back on track, but given her record of projects falling apart, we hesitate to get our hopes up even though the show has officially been greenlit.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Prime Video gave Tomb Raider a series order more than a year after it was first announced that Waller-Bridge was adapting it. A casting search for the next Lara Croft will supposedly begin “soon.” This comes after Prime has seen major video game adaptation success with the critically acclaimed Fallout series. Waller-Bridge is expected to write, but not act, in the new show.

It is just slightly disappointing to see an original, inventive voice like Waller-Bridge’s get sucked into franchise territory, but apparently, she has a personal connection to the material. “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,” the writer said in a statement. “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.”

Of course, franchise territory is where Waller-Bridge has been living post-Fleabag, appearing in a Star Wars spin-off, an Indiana Jones sequel, and taking a pass at a James Bond script. (She’s also doing voice work in John Krasinski’s IF, for the sake of comprehensiveness.) That work prepared her for this next endeavor: “Having worked on Bond and having worked as an actor on Indy, I feel like I’ve been building up to this. What if I could take the reins on an action franchise, with everything I’ve learned, with a character I adore, and also just bring back some of that ’90s vibe?” she previously said about the project. “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.”