Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner officially in talks to play Lara Croft in Tomb Raider show

A couple weeks ago, we reported that Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) was in the running to play Lara Croft, the lead character of the long-running Tomb Raider series of video games, in a new live-action show coming to Amazon Prime Video. At the time, Turner was testing alongside actresses like Lucy Boynton (Murder on the Orient Express, Bohemian Rhapsody). Now, Deadline reports that Turner is in negotiations to play Lara, so it looks like she won out!

I don't want to go full bore and say "Sophie Turner will play Lara Croft," since things could theoretically fall apart in negotiations, but this seems as close to a done deal as it's possible to get without the deal actually being done. Unless something unexpected happens, Turner will follow in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander to play the treasure-hunting Lara Croft in live-action.

Jolie and Vikander both played Lara on the big screen; the Amazon show, which is being managed by Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, marks the first time Lara will come to TV in live-action form. On the animated side of things, there's already an animated show called Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft running on Netflix.

Obviously, Lara Croft is a hot commodity. She first appeared in the video game Tomb Raider way back in 1996 and has since then been reincarnated many times over, in new games, on the screen, in comics, etc. She's usually depicted as a British archeologist who travels the world excavating ancient ruins, or raiding tombs, if you prefer.

There's no release date set for the new Tomb Raider show as of yet; they've just now securing their lead actor, so obviously production hasn't properly started. I'd say we'll be watching Turner (probably) raid her first tomb sometime in 2026.

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