EXCLUSIVE: MGM has set Misha Green to write and make her feature directorial debut on the next Tomb Raider, which has Alicia Vikander set to reprise her role as Lara Croft. Green steps up here after creating and directing Lovecraft Country, the breakout HBO series that stars Jurnee Smollett, Jonathan Majors, and Michael Kenneth Williams.
Tomb Raider will be produced by Graham King via his GK Films banner, and Elizabeth Cantillon via The Cantillon Company.
Green is the showrunner and executive producer of Lovecraft Country, alongside Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams and based on the novel by Matt Ruff. She separately wrote and is producing The Mother, which sold in a competitive situation to Netflix and is also producing Warner Brothers’ Cleopatra Jones and Makeready’s The Gilded Ones. Green previously co-created, executive produced and wrote the WGN series Underground, which broke ratings records during its first season and was the first scripted U.S. television show that focused on slavery and the Underground Railroad. Underground was nominated for four NAACP Image Awards and a TCA Award for Outstanding New Program by the Television Critics Association.
Vikander’s first turn in 2018’s Tomb Raider grossed around $250M at the global box office. MGM’s Tomb Raider will be released theatrically in the U.S. via the studio’s distribution and marketing joint venture United Artists Releasing, and internationally through Warner Bros.
The latest Tomb Raider installment is among a killer slate of films overseen by MGM’s Film Group’s Michael DeLuca and Pamela Abdy, whose upcoming theatrical films include Paul Thomas Anderson’s next untitled film; Joe Wright’s Cyrano; Ridley Scott’s Gucci project starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver; Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives; Legally Blonde 3 starring Reese Witherspoon and written by Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor; George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba; Chris Lord and Phil Miller’s feature adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir’s next novel (aka Project Hail Mary) starring Ryan Gosling; Tommy Kail’s feature adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof; a Lena Waithe produced Sammy Davis Jr. project; Kenya Barris’ Richard Pryor project; Scott Z. Burn’s Faked! starring Kate Winslet; Jeff Fowler’s modern live-action CGI-hybrid feature film reimagining of Pink Panther; a feature film adaption of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer, to be produced by Plan B, Harpo Films and Kamilah Forbes; Sarah Polley’s feature adaptation of Women Talking with Frances McDormand producing and starring; Lee Isaac Chung’s next untitled film; Cory Finley’s film adaptation of Landscape With Invisible Hand with Tiffany Haddish starring; and under MGM’s Orion Pictures label, Billy Porter’s feature debut What If?, among others.
Green is represented by CAA and Del, Shaw, Moonves.