A Small Update On The Upcoming Tomb Raider Film

Hey, you remember the recent news that broke concerning yet another film adaptation of the Tomb Raider franchise? Well it appears that some actual headway has been made in the projects as writers Hawk Ostby (best name ever) and Mark Fergus have been attached to write the film. Normally news like this either wouldn’t be that big or it would just be greeted as bad news due to the background of the writers in question. But unlike other video game projects that have had rather hack level writers become attached, there’s a chance we could see pure gold out of Tomb Raider’s upcoming theatrical reboot.

The reason fans of the lovely Ms. Croft should be excited at the news of Hawk and Mark joining the project is because these are the guys who wrote the first Iron Man movie – the one that didn’t suck a lot.  In addition to writing the first Iron Man film, Hawk and Mark also wrote the exceedingly depressing sci-fi drama Children of Men.  While some of the more memorable moments of Iron Man were written on the day of filming due to improv from Robert Downey Jr. (Jeff Bridges likened the atmosphere of Iron Man to a high budget student film), Hawk and Mark have proven they have the chops thanks to the aforementioned Children of Men.

Hawk and Mark seem like they have big aspirations for Tomb Raider as they said “We aim to write an origin story for Lara Croft that solidifies her place alongside Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor in the pantheon of great female action heroes.”  Lara Croft has always been a strong character but attempting to craft a story and image that puts her next to movie and geek icons such as Ripley and Sarah Connor is going to be a tall order to be achieved.  I do hope that the vision of Lara Croft that Hawk and Mark have is ultimately reached as it would be nice to have a Tomb Raider movie that can’t be summed up as “eh, it was alright.”

Besides having a writing duo in place, no other creative members have joined the project and which actress will be given the brown shirt and dual pistols of Ms. Croft has yet to be decided.  GK Films, the company producing the new TR flick, still has the film pegged for a 2013 release so it could be a while before we hear anything else substantial about the film – or at least until it’s time to hype the new Tomb Raider video game and start the synergy gears moving for optimum transmedia power.

[via Variety]