On September 3, 2025, Amazon MGM Studios confirmed what had already been whispered across every fan forum and Variety sidebar: Sophie Turner will strap on the dual pistols of Lara Croft for a new live-action Tomb Raider series on Prime Video.
Created and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge—who will co-showrun with Chad Hodge, with Jonathan Van Tulleken (Shōgun) directing the opener—the series marks Amazon’s latest attempt to turn nostalgia into subscription growth. Developed in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics, production begins in January 2026. The stakes: sky-high. The target: every gamer who spent the late ’90s raiding polygons, every prestige-TV viewer who insists television must now have trauma arcs, and every Amazon Prime member who keeps asking why their free shipping costs $139 a year.
The press release framed Turner as the “next heir” to a role previously embodied by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander. The subtext was louder: Hollywood’s sacred economy of reboots, remakes, and revivals has once again unearthed its most reliable relic. Lara Croft doesn’t just raid tombs. She raids platforms, wallets, and attention spans.
The Myth of the Fresh Take
Every reboot arrives with the same promise: This time it will be different. This time the character will be deeper, the world richer, the scripts sharper. This time Lara Croft will not just be an adventurer, but a complex human whose quips are grounded in trauma and whose stunts are metaphors for resilience.
But let’s be honest. Reboots are never new. They’re iterative. They’re software patches disguised as revolutions. Amazon’s Tomb Raider will promise reinvention but deliver the same archeological template: temples, torches, vaguely problematic depictions of ancient cultures, and one woman running through caves in outfits that defy both physics and practicality.
The novelty isn’t in the story. It’s in the packaging. Sophie Turner. Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Prime Video. Prestige veneer slapped on a franchise that has always been pulp in couture.
The Sophie Turner Factor
Turner, of course, comes preloaded with cultural memory. She’s not just Sansa Stark. She’s the generation’s reminder that HBO trauma grooming is now a prerequisite for every major streaming franchise. Amazon isn’t hiring an actress. It’s hiring a resume of associations: nobility, survival, deadpan line delivery, and a fandom that already knows how to trend hashtags.
Will Turner be convincing as Lara Croft? Of course. Acting is pretending. But more importantly, she is brand-coherent. She represents the convergence of gamer nostalgia, millennial fandom, and tabloid resilience. Turner is not just an actress. She’s a safe bet disguised as a bold choice.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Quip Dealer
The Waller-Bridge element is the most telling. Her brand is quippy trauma feminism, a mix of vulnerability and wit that critics call revolutionary and detractors call over-scripted. In Amazon’s calculus, her presence guarantees the show will not just be action. It will be commentary. Lara will not only leap across ravines. She will pause midair to confess she once dated a man who collected Funko Pops.
Waller-Bridge’s fingerprints will ensure that Tomb Raider isn’t mistaken for Tomb Raider. It will be Tomb Raider (Prestige Edition™)—complete with monologues, self-aware jokes, and at least one emotionally devastating reveal about an ancient relic being a metaphor for attachment issues.
Amazon’s IP Mineshaft
None of this is surprising. Amazon has already doubled down on video-game IP post-Fallout, which turned irradiated Americana into a streaming juggernaut. When executives realize audiences will happily watch adaptations of things they once button-mashed, the strategy becomes obvious: buy nostalgia, scale nostalgia, stream nostalgia.
Halo on Paramount+, The Last of Us on HBO, Fallout on Prime. Tomb Raider is simply the next shovel in the mineshaft. The risk isn’t whether it will be watched. It’s whether anyone will feel it mattered once the binge is over.
The Prestige vs. Popcorn Dilemma
The tension is eternal: should Tomb Raider be pulpy escapism or prestige drama? Jolie leaned camp. Vikander leaned grit. Amazon will inevitably try both—prestige arcs in the trailers, pulp set pieces in the episodes. The result will be schizophrenic television, swinging between Emmy-bait dialogue and explosions choreographed for the YouTube highlight reel.
Prestige television has a habit of mistaking seriousness for depth. Popcorn spectacle has a habit of mistaking chaos for fun. Tomb Raider will aim for both and likely satisfy neither fully. But that’s the point: to please everyone enough to keep them subscribed.
The Gamers’ Impossible Checklist
The gaming fandom, of course, has already prepared its impossible checklist:
- Faithful to the Crystal Dynamics canon, not the Core Design canon.
- But also respect the ’90s polygons.
- No sexualization, but also no sanitization.
- Serious tone, but also camp energy.
- Prestige-level plotting, but also Easter eggs.
- Accurate archeology, but also fun tomb puzzles.
This is the paradox of adaptation. Fans want everything at once. They want reverence and reinvention, pulp and prestige, nostalgia and novelty. When they don’t get it, they will declare the franchise ruined—again. And still watch every episode.
The Stunt Economy
No one ever watches Tomb Raider for dialogue. They watch for stunts. Swings across crumbling bridges, dives through collapsing temples, slow-motion escapes from explosions. The actual archaeology is secondary. The history is tertiary. The stunts are primary.
But stunts in 2025 come with baggage. They must be grounded, practical, immersive, but also safe, CGI-enhanced, and Instagrammable. They must wow without offending OSHA. They must look like risk but feel like insurance. The irony is that danger itself has been rebooted.
The Cultural Math
So what does all this add up to? A Sophie Turner-led Tomb Raider series, prestige-pulp hybrid, launching in 2026 with sky-high expectations. It will be heralded as bold. It will be criticized as formulaic. It will dominate Twitter discourse for two weeks, then dissolve into the streaming slurry.
Because the truth is this: Tomb Raider isn’t being made to last. It’s being made to exist. To fill a slot. To drive sign-ups. To remind us that IP is the new currency of culture, and every property is a relic waiting to be dug up, dusted off, and redeployed.
The Haunting Close
On September 3, 2025, Amazon didn’t just announce a show. It announced the continuation of an economy where nostalgia is mined, adapted, and monetized. Sophie Turner will don the holsters. Phoebe Waller-Bridge will script the quips. Chad Hodge will wrangle the arcs. Jonathan Van Tulleken will direct the opener.
And when the series streams in 2026, audiences will binge it, dissect it, meme it, and move on. The tombs will be raided. The relics will be unearthed. The brand will be reinforced.
The haunting truth is this: in the reboot economy, nothing ever dies. Not even Lara Croft. She isn’t a character anymore. She’s intellectual property. And in this world, intellectual property is the only relic that’s truly immortal.