Angelina Jolie Was Seen as Too Old to Play Lara Croft in Another ‘Tomb Raider’ Movie
Angelina Jolie once played a huge part in adapting the popular Tomb Raider games to the big screen. But when it was time to take the movies in a new direction, it was believed that Jolie aged out of the role.
Angelina Jolie wasn’t young enough for the new ‘Tomb Raider’ movie
Jolie’s feelings towards the Tomb Raider franchise was as mixed as the films’ critics. According to Rotten Tomatoes, both movies received pretty low ratings. The majority of critic reviews resulted in a 20% score for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The film’s sequel, The Cradle Of Life, scored a little higher with a 24% score based on 175 reviews. According to Black Film, Jolie also seemed underwhelmed by the first Tomb Raider movie.
“I wasn’t satisfied with it. Through the making of that film, we were all still trying figure out how things worked, and we were trying to make the video game into a person, but still it was the video game and still she was a video vixen and she wasn’t quite a solid woman with emotions and feelings,” she said.
She was much more satisfied with the second Tomb Raider film. So much so that she felt it was a solid conclusion to the franchise.
“I just don’t feel like I need to do another one,” she told World Entertainment News Network (via IGN). “I felt really happy with the last one. It was one we really wanted to do.”
Still, producer Dan Lin would later reveal that a Tomb Raider sequel was in the works. Even if Jolie was willing to star in the feature, she might not have been able to due to her age.
“We are rebooting Lara Croft. It’s a great story that we’re going to tell, very character-orientated and more realistic than the past movies. It is an origin tale so it’s going to be a younger Lara Croft,” Lin once said according to Irish Examiner.
Jolie was 33-years-old at the time of the interview in 2009.
How old was Angelina Jolie in ‘Tomb Raider’ compared to Alicia Vikander?
The planned Tomb Raider reboot would eventually hit theaters in 2018 with Alicia Vikander as the star. Vikander remarked that her Lara Croft was different than Jolie’s, as Vikander’s was at the beginning of her career as an adventurer.
Vikander also commented that her Lara Croft was a reflection of the times, and the changing societal expectations for women’s roles.
“It’s interesting that a character that has been seen as very sexualized back in the ’90s is very different now,” she told Marie Claire. “If you go out in the street and ask men and women, young and old, what they find attractive, it’s different. You want [Lara] to be attractive and sexy, but, nowadays, you want this to be a girl that fights. Someone who’s vulnerable, but funny. Someone who’s OK with people seeing her bad sides.”
What was also different about Vikander and Jolie’s Lara Crofts was their ages. Vikander was 28-years-old during the filming of the rebooted Tomb Raider. Action star Jolie was also in her 20s in her first Tomb Raider flick, but she was younger than Vikander at 25.
Why an Angelina Jolie cameo in ‘Tomb Raider’ didn’t happen
There was an idea floating around during Tomb Raider’s development regarding Jolie possibly making a cameo in Vikander’s flick. But the film’s producer Graham King confided that the idea was scrapped. He felt there was no real purpose behind the Maleficent star‘s appearance in the reboot.
“It was never a story that had that moment where you could, you know what I mean? Pass the baton over,” King said in an interview with Cinemablend.
