Walton Goggins may have just climbed aboard Warner and MGM’s Tomb Raider movie last week, but the Django Unchained star did so without a second’s hesitation because according to him, “the story is so good. It’s so good!”
Headed up by Norwegian filmmaker Roar Uthaug (The Wave), the upcoming adaptation has already cast Alicia Vikander in the role of Lara Croft, and early story nuggets point to a reboot that will mine inspiration from Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider video game that drew praise in 2013.
It’s an origin story, then, one in which Goggins will take point as the primary villain. Little is known about the identity of said nemesis, but while chatting to Yahoo Movies, the new recruit did shed some light on his mystery character, who is purportedly a much more nuanced baddie than your standard fare.
“Is he a villain? Sure, that is an easy description. An antagonist, for sure. But [like other characters] I have been so lucky to have the opportunity to play over the course of my career, there are real reasons behind his antagonism, and it’s not what you’d expect. He is very complicated, and his motivations are pure.”
Overall, though, Goggins went on to compare the Tomb Raider of 2018 to the cinematic amalgamation of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Victory: An Island Tale, a psychological yarn that takes place on one of Indonesia’s many islands, which isn’t too far away from the Dragon’s Triangle and the fictional island of Yamatai that featured in the 2013 video game. Indiana Jones is naturally the more tangible comparison here, as it lends credence to the rumors suggesting Warner Bros. and MGM are cooking up an adventure film with sprinklings of the supernatural.
Here’s what Goggins had to share on the film’s inspirations:
“I think I can say this: For me, it’s like Raiders of the Lost Ark meets a genre version of the Joseph Conrad novel Victory: An Island Tale. I just jumped at the chance.”
Tomb Raider is slated for March 16, 2018. Meanwhile, Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Transformers: The Last Knight) has been elected to pen the script.