Development on the long-mooted third Tomb Raider movie has been slow and tortuous, but with the most recent instalment in the videogame franchise shifting units in the millions, the subject of a new film is right back on developer Crystal Dynamics' agenda. Recently set up at MGM by producer Graham King, the Lara Croft reboot now has a screenwriter, in the form of Buffy The Vampire Slayer veteran Marti Noxon.
Best known for her impressive CV in television, Noxon has been showrunner / executive producer / consulting producer on a ream of big hitters including the aforementioned Buffy, its spin-off Angel, Prison Break, Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men and Glee. Her recent shift into film has seen her pen the scripts for I Am Number Four and the Fright Night remake.
She has a track-record for projects skewing young, in other words, which makes her a good fit for the new Tomb Raider. Like the recent game, the film, we've already been told, will catch up with Lara at an earlier point in her life than the Jolie movies.
The new game sees Lara fresh from the academy, honing her nascent fighting, puzzling and surviving skills following a shipwreck off the coast of Japan. Back at the end of 2011, King was talking up the same reboot angle, saying that although the previous films (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Filth Life) "weren't disasters, the story that we're telling is really the story before she became Lara Croft, so it is a character piece, which I find interesting. But it's still a lot of action and a lot of fun."
Casting is still up in the air, with many suggesting that Jennifer Lawrence would be a perfect young Lara (although she's kinda busy with another action franchise), and Hayley Atwell vounteering herself. The new Tomb Raider clearly won't be making its originally mooted 2013 release date, but it's not been buried alive either. It still looks likely that it will emerge blinking into the light at some point in the not-too-distant future.