So far, Warner Bros. has been busy assembling a fairly interesting creative ensemble for their upcoming, ambitious Tomb Raider reboot, which is set to be the third attempt at successfully bringing the character of Lara Croft to life on the big screen. Despite the bad aftertaste left by the early 2000s, Angelina Jolie-led films, the reboot has already attached several award-winning dramatic actors to its cast, including Alicia Vikander as Croft, Walton Goggins as the film's mysterious villain, and Into the Badland's Daniel Wu as an ally of Croft's. Combining the talent of its actors then, with foreign filmmaker, Roar Uthaug (The Wave), directing the film and the Tomb Raider reboot might not be such a foolhardy idea after all.
There will, of course, be multiple hurdles that the studio will have to face along the way - but following the release of two critically-acclaimed installments in the original Tomb Raider video game franchise (over the past three to four years) and there's nothing but good will surrounding the reboot right now. That's in spite of many gamers being left disappointed once again last year, by the critical and financial letdowns of both Assassin's Creed and Warcraft.
Principal photography on Tomb Raider began just a few days ago (at the time of writing this) and in an interesting bit of news, THR is reporting that Dominic West has been added to the film's cast. The TV veteran is reportedly set to play Lara's father, Richard Croft, an aristocratic archaeologist who is also a key figure in the mythology of the games. The character was previously played by Jon Voight in Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider films, though, the overall size of West's role in this reboot remains unknown.
It does seem, however, that no matter how much screen time he actually ends up having in the film, Richard Croft will have a large presence in the reboot's story, whether that's just through the character's impact on Lara or his own actions in the actual story itself. While not many plot details are known about it, the film is set to follow Lara as she embarks on her first expedition to try and complete her father's research, uncover ancient secrets, and simultaneously clear his disgraced name along the way. Daniel Wu's Lu Ren is reportedly a ship captain that helps Lara in her mission as well.
West is a talented actor in his own right, primarily known for his work on both The Affair and The Wire, and he should be able to bring the right kind of weight to a role that seems like it'll hold some serious gravitas over Lara and the other characters in the film. In case that wasn't evident by West's talent and the plot details alone, then it should be by who else was reportedly in consideration for the role; with THR adding that Ralph Fiennes, Viggo Mortenson, and Colin Firth were all approached to play the role before the studio finally decided on West. Nonetheless, he marks yet another exciting new addition to this film, which is just the latest in a long string of studio attempts to try and break Hollywood's longstanding video game adaptation curse. With this cast, it certainly seems to have the potential to do just that too.
Source: THR
