Amazon has bought the rights to various huge franchises in recent years, and its acquisition of Tomb Raider for around $600 million is the second largest after The Lord of the Rings. It has plans in place to develop a shared universe for the franchise, and it could revitalize the iconic character on the big screen.

It was recently announced that Sophie Turner will star as the legendary explorer, in what could be the biggest role of the 29-year-old’s career to date.

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A new shared universe

Amazon paid a vast amount of money to get the rights to Tomb Raider, and it obviously thinks that it can become one of its greatest franchises. It plans to develop a cinematic universe consisting of a television series, a film, and potentially a game to begin with. This will act as a starting point from which it can expand and create other spinoffs.

There’s a strong chance that picking up Tomb Raider could turn out to be one of the smartest decisions Amazon has made to date. After all, it’s already a well-established franchise with one of the best-known characters of all time. There have been countless console, along with mobile and online casino spinoffs. The character is so popular in the slots market that there are two jackpot casino games named after her – Lara Croft: Temples and Tombs and Lara Croft: Tomb of the Sun.

Amazon can leverage all of these past products and use them as a springboard to promote its own offerings. It may even consider releasing more casino and mobile games, as these have attracted a lot of interest in the past.

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The career-defining role

Turner burst onto the scene as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, and played the key character for eight seasons of the hit HBO series. This acted as a catalyst for a highly promising career, and earned her the part of Jean Grey in the X-Men franchise.

While her turns in X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singewr, 20-16) and Dark Phoenix (Simon Kinberg, 2019) put Turner up there with the Hollywood top brass, she hasn’t been in a major blockbuster since the 2019 offering. Landing the role of Lara Croft represents a huge move, and one that could put her on the trajectory to achieve even greater parts in the future. She’ll be following in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie, who used her time as the legendary explorer to amass a huge fanbase.

There have been no announcements yet about when the new Tomb Raider offerings will drop, but the fact that Amazon has made such a solid acting choice for the main role is highly promising. It has also been reported that Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be writing the series, and bringing her wealth of experience from Killing Eve and No Time to Die to the table.

Tomb Raider will finally have its own integrated universe and, with Turner in the starring role, it could be a major hit.