When director Roar Uthaug's Tomb Raider dropped into theaters in early 2018, it performed well-enough for it to inspire sequel chatter, but also wasn't quite big enough for gears for a follow-up to instantly start grinding. Fortunately, Alicia Vikander provided a positive update last fall, revealing in an interview that Tomb Raider 2 would start the ball rolling in 2021, and now, just 25 days into the new year, it looks like the star's word is her bond because the project has just hired a very exciting filmmaker to helm the project: Lovecraft Country's Mischa Green.
The writer/director has earned great acclaim for her HBO series, and while her career thus far has been almost exclusively on television, Deadline is reporting that she has signed a deal with MGM that will see her make the untitled Tomb Raider 2. Alicia Vikander will be back to play the role of adventurer Lara Croft, following up her performance in the previous movie, which made just short of $275 million worldwide.
When the news broke, Mischa Green was quick to vaguely comment on it via her Twitter account, posting,
Should everything go according to plan, Tomb Raider 2 will be the first film directed by Mischa Green, whose only previous experience in that department was on the eighth episode of Lovecraft County Season 1. She is far from a nascent in Hollywood, however. She got her start as a staff writer on the cult FX series Sons Of Anarchy, and followed that gig by writing episodes for shows like Heroes and Spartacus. Those experiences were followed by her first showrunning gig, co-creating the WGN series Underground with co-writer Joe Pokaski. That show only lasted two seasons, ending in 2017, but she returned to the small screen as the creator of the hit Lovecraft Country in 2020. A second season has not yet been confirmed, but presumably she will balance that work with the development of the video game adaptation.
Mischa Green is notably the second director to be attached to make Tomb Raider 2, as it was reported last spring that Ben Wheatley had signed on for the gig. The news was seemingly confirmed, with the Free Fire director quoted about the future of video game movies this past October, but the new trade report doesn't mention why he doesn't seem to be involved with the production anymore.
The arrival of a new writer/director on Tomb Raider 2 suggests that the project is going to be mostly working from square one under a new administration, but hopefully it's a film that starts to come together quickly (based on her social media response, Mischa Green seems entirely prepared to jump into the whole process). The whole thing will definitely feel more real once it gets a release date, so we'll just have to have faith and exhibit patience for now.
