Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 action adventure film directed by Simon West and written by Patrick Massett and John Zinman, based on the Tomb Raider video game series by Core Design. An international co-production between the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, the film stars Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, with the cast also featuring Jon Voight, Iain Glen, Noah Taylor, and Daniel Craig. The story revolves around Lara Croft trying to obtain ancient artifacts in competition with the Illuminati.
Development of a film adaptation of Tomb Raider began when Paramount Pictures acquired the film rights to the franchise in 1998. Originally intended for release in 2000, the project went through numerous scripts and screenwriters, resulting in production delays. Lara's sex appeal was scaled down for the film following pressure from franchise owner Eidos Interactive and to ensure a PG-13 rating. Filming took place in Cambodia and England from July to November 2000.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was released in the United States and Canada on June 15, 2001, to generally negative reviews, with criticism for the plot and action sequences, although Jolie was praised for her performance. The film grossed $274.7 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing video game adaptations. A sequel, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003, with Jolie reprising her role.
Plot Adventurer Lara Croft defeats a robot in an Egyptian tomb, revealed to be a training exercise arena in her family manor, where she lives with her technical assistant Bryce and butler Hillary. In Venice, as the first phase of a planetary alignment begins, the Illuminati search for a key to rejoin halves of a mysterious artifact, "the Triangle," which must be completed by the final phase, a solar eclipse. Manfred Powell assures the cabal that the artifact is almost ready, but has no real idea of its location.
Lara's father Lord Richard Croft, long missing and presumed dead, appears to her in a dream. Lara awakens to a mysterious ticking, and finds a strange clock hidden inside the manor. On her way to consult a friend of her father's, Wilson, Lara crosses paths with Alex West, an American associate and fellow adventurer. Lara shows Wilson the clock, and he puts her in touch with Powell. Lara shows Powell photographs of the clock, which he claims not to recognize.
That night, armed commandos invade the house and steal the clock, bringing it to Powell. The next morning, a prearranged letter from Lara's father arrives, explaining that the clock is the key to retrieving the halves of the Triangle of Light, an ancient object with the power to control time. After misuse of its power destroyed an entire city, the Triangle was separated: one half was hidden in a tomb at Angkor, Cambodia, and the other in the ruined city located at Ukok Plateau, Siberia. Her father tasks her to find and destroy both pieces before the Illuminati can exploit the Triangle's power.
In Cambodia, Lara finds Powell, who has hired West, and his commandos already at the temple. West solves part of the temple's puzzle, and Powell prepares to insert the clock at the moment of alignment. Lara, realizing they made a mistake, finds the correct keyhole; with only seconds left, Lara persuades Powell to throw her the clock. She unlocks the first piece of the Triangle, and the statues of the temple come to life and attack the intruders. West, Powell, and his remaining men flee with the clock, leaving Lara to defeat an enormous six-armed guardian statue. She escapes with the first piece; recovering at a Buddhist monastery, she arranges a meeting with Powell.
In Venice, Italy, Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle, and informs Lara that her father was a member of the Illuminati, and offers to use the Triangle's power to resurrect him; though reluctant, she agrees to join forces. Lara and Bryce travel with Powell, West, and the leader of the Illuminati to Siberia. Entering the tomb, they discover a giant orrery, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the second half of the Triangle, and Powell kills the Illuminati's leader to restore the Triangle himself, but the halves will not fuse. Realizing Lara knows the solution, Powell kills West to persuade her to complete the Triangle to restore West's and her father's lives. Lara complies, but seizes the Triangle herself.
In a "crossing" of time, Lara faces her father, who urges her to destroy the Triangle for good rather than save his life. Returning to the tomb, Lara manipulates time to save West and stab Powell, and destroys the Triangle. The tomb begins to collapse, and all flee but the wounded Powell, who reveals to Lara that he murdered her father. After a hand-to-hand fight, she kills Powell, retrieves her father's pocket watch, and escapes the tomb.
Back in her manor, Lara visits her father's memorial and finds that Bryce has reprogrammed the robot, and Hillary presents her with her pistols, which she takes with a smile.
Cast
Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, a British adventurer and archaeologist Rachel Appleton as young Lara Iain Glen as Manfred Powell, leader of the Illuminati Jon Voight as Lord Richard Croft, Lara's father Daniel Craig as Alex West, a former acquaintance of Lara and rival treasure hunter who teams with Powell for financial gain Noah Taylor as Bryce, Lara's tech expert Richard Johnson as the Distinguished Gentleman Chris Barrie as Hillary, Lara's butler Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mr Pimms Leslie Phillips as Wilson
Production Development and writing Paramount Pictures acquired the film rights to the Tomb Raider video game franchise in early 1998, and announced Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin as the prospective film's producers. The film went through many drafts and screenwriters between 1998 and 2000, which resulted in production delays. In March 1998, screenwriter Brent V. Friedman, who had co-written another video game film adaptation Mortal Kombat Annihilation the year before, was hired to write the first version of the screenplay. The original story pitch for the film was for it to be an all out hard R-rated action horror that extensively featured gore and female nudity, with the plot involving Egyptian Book of the Dead. Once this version was rejected, mostly due to budgetary concerns, in July 1998 Friedman wrote his first draft to be an action adventure thriller, which was about Lara Croft and her American partner called Dodge looking for El Dorado, while dealing with an Australian mercenary group who is also after it. Their search takes them through Caribbean and Ecuador, and the twist in the third act of the script would be the discovery of an ancient alchemical device called "The Black Veil", which can turn metal into gold, but mercenaries are after it because they want to use it to create plutonium.L'Histoire du Tomb Raider 1996-2008: L'odyssée de Lara Croft (The Story of Tomb Raider: The Odyssey of Lara Croft) (2017) - by Alexandre SerelDavid Hughes - Tales From Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made? - Chapter 12; Tomb Raider Chronicles - Why making the leap to the big screen was the toughest challenge Lara Croft had ever faced, Pages 211-235Tomb Raider - Screenplay by Brent V. Friedman - First Draft, July 17, 1998
Friedman's first draft was initially received very well by Paramount, but then it was decided to go with a different story. Friedman did write a second draft, but this one was rejected by Eidos Interactive, who by then made some demands about what could and could not be in the Tomb Raider film. He was then replaced by another screenwriter, Sara B. Cooper (who at that time was called Sara B. Charno). The new plot of her script included Lara trying to stop the "8th Wonder of the World", during a planetary alignment. The story also included alien creatures, and Lara being impregnated by one.
Once Charno's script was rejected as well, Steven E. de Souza was hired in September 1998 to write a new script. De Souza previously wrote and directed another video game film adaptation, Street Fighter. His Tomb Raider script was about Lara and her expedition trying to find the Library of Alexandria, which contains some ancient powerful weapon, and which they discovered is somewhere in Kafiristan forests, before another expedition led by main villains finds it first. De Souza said he was contracted to write "story, treatment, draft, rewrite and polish", he wrote his second draft in February 1999, and he submitted his "revised, polished script in the first week of March 1999." De Souza's script got very good reactions, and in April 1999 director Stephen Herek signed on to direct the film, based on de Souza's script, and with a planned summer 2000 release date. It was also around this time when Angelina Jolie was first considered to star in the film, following over a year and a half long reports and rumors regarding the casting of Lara Croft for the film, and different actresses who were either attached, considered, or suggested for the role.Tomb Raider - Screenplay by Steven E. de Souza - Second Draft, February 5, 1999
Harek wanted a new screenwriter to work with him, because he felt de Souza would be more on producers side than with him, since de Souza already made few films with them. Gordon and Levin then hired Patrick Massett and John Zinman to write another new script. Massett and Zinman first wrote forty pages long "scriptment", a mix of story treatment and the script, and after they were given a go ahead to write the script, they wrote their first draft in August 1999. In their script, the story had Lara and her partner, and main villains, looking for the tomb of Alexander the Great which contains the Shield of Achilles, which can make whoever is wearing it invincible and give him great powers, and they would be looking for the Shield in the mountains of Pakistan.Tomb Raider - Screenplay by Patrick Massett & John Zinman - August 26, 1999
By October 1999, Massett and Zinman were replaced by another two screenwriters, Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, who just had big success with Face/Off, another Paramount film, and were working as script doctors for them and other studios. Werb and Colleary did a rewrite of de Souza's, Massett and Zinman's script, and their changes included changing the locations to the jungles of North Africa and India, the main villains were led by Lara's uncle and his illegitimate son, the script was also changed to be more action packed and exciting, and to focus more on Lara as "buxom heroine", such as adding humorous scenes where she has to use her body to get out of dangerous situations. Their script drafts also had some horror elements, for example a scene where Lara and some other characters end up in a tomb with "hallucinogenic fungal spores" which cause them to see nightmarish visions of wild beasts and monsters attacking them, or a later scene where Lara fights against man-eating demon dog Cerberus.Tomb Raider - Screenplay by Mike Werb & Michael Colleary - October, 1999Tomb Raider - Screenplay by Steven E. de Souza, Revisions by Patrick Massett & John Zinman, Revisions by Mike Werb & Michael Colleary - November 8, 1999