Despite a mixed reception upon its premiere in 2018, Tomb Raider has been levelling up on the global Netflix charts.
The action film, a reboot of the 2001 and 2003 films starring Angelina Jolie, is based on the Lara Croft video game series, following the launch of Tomb Raider for the Sega Saturn in 1996. In the 2018 retelling, Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, Ex Machina) takes on the role of the iconic British archaeologist.
Alongside Vikander, Dominic West (The Crown, The Wire), Walton Goggins (Fallout, The Righteous Gemstones), Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands, American Born Chinese), and Kristin Scott Thomas (Slow Horses, Nowhere Boy) co-star in the film, which grossed $275 million against a budget of around $100 million during its theatrical run.
“Lara Croft (Vikander), the fiercely independent daughter of a missing adventurer, must push herself beyond her limits when she discovers the island where her father, Lord Richard Croft (West) disappeared,” Tomb Raider’s official logline states.
On Netflix’s global charts (obtained via FlixPatrol), Tomb Raider currently sits as the eighth most-watched film on the streamer’s worldwide top ten, as of October 19. Nearly a decade on since its premiere, the success of the action-adventure on streaming points to a potentially growing cult following.
As is often the case with cult action films, especially video game adaptations (see, for example, the Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil series), they often fail to impress critics upon first release, a reality reflected in Tomb Raider’s Rotten Tomatoes score, which sits at a “Rotten” 52%. In their own time, they can develop their own audience, who may not have the same attachment to the movie’s resemblance to their source material as early moviegoers did.
This surge in streaming for Tomb Raider is also good news for Amazon Prime Video, who have a planned TV reboot in the works, starring Sophie Turner as Lara Croft, alongside Jason Isaacs, Sigourney Weaver, and Celia Imrie. The rival streamer will likely be hoping this renewed interest in the franchise will equal a strong viewership for the upcoming series.
