Hopefully this is all just a stepping stone towards women directors being afforded the same opportunities as men, but the current trend of getting women to helm female-driven action tentpoles seems to be extending to TOMB RAIDER as well.
According to Tracking Board, WB wants a lady in the director’s chair, and they've compiled a shortlist of three of the most prolific action directors without a Y chromosome: Mimi Leder, Catherine Hardwicke, and (of course) Kathryn Bigelow.
What’s curious is that TB claims that the gig was originally meant for TV director Tricia Brock (whose credits range from THE L WORD and GOSSIP GIRL to THE WALKING DEAD and MR. ROBOT), who, for some reason, passed. So they went from a TV director with no major film credits to, among others, the first woman who ever won a Best Director Oscar. Naturally.
Of course, even if this is true, these are just the top names on WB’s list, and there’s very little likelihood that Bigelow, particularly, wants to put in the time and effort to make a great, 201? TOMB RAIDER flick. Hardwicke, who has the least action-y resume of the three, may also be too busy with her various projects in development, including the adaptation of Jerry Spinelli’s STARGIRL.
Leder seems like the most likely candidate here: she’s still sorta known as a studio action director due to the one-two of THE PEACEMAKER and DEEP IMPACT, even though she’s primarily worked in TV for the past decade-plus. In terms of street cred, she’s not that far removed from Simon West and Jan de Bont at the time they made their respective TOMB RAIDERs.
I’m not sure if Lara Croft still has the cultural cachet she once did, but if WB is indeed set on making another movie with the character, they certainly seem to be aiming higher than, say, Daybreak with their two HITMAN movies. If they can get Bigelow in a room to talk about the project, then hopefully they can somehow entice her to deliver us a NEAR DARK (or at least BLUE STEEL)-level scoop of badassery with a tough, smart, formidable, and sexy Lara at the forefront. But at least they don’t seem to be trying to make another disposable, half-assed, style-impaired video game adaptation. At least not yet.
