Alicia Vikander's Tomb Raider sequel officially scrapped

Alicia Vikander's planned Tomb Raider sequel is no longer going ahead.

The Oscar-winning actress told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month that the follow-up to her 2018 movie Tomb Raider was on hold following Amazon's acquisition of the franchise's studio MGM.

Editors at The Wrap revealed on Thursday that MGM has lost the film rights to the popular video game series because studio executives failed to greenlight a sequel before May this year.

According to the publication, the movie franchise will now be overhauled, with a new director at the helm and a new actress to play Lara Croft.

Producer Graham King and his company GK Films are now shopping the rights around and a bidding war between movie studios is currently underway. GK Films acquired the Tomb Raider rights from Japanese video game company Square Enix in 2011.

A sequel starring Vikander had been in the works since 2019 and once had a release date of March 2021. Free Fire's Ben Wheatley was originally slated to direct before being replaced by Lovecraft Country's Misha Green, who also rewrote the screenplay.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly earlier this month, Vikander admitted that both she and Green were ready to make the film but were still waiting for the go-ahead.

"With the MGM and Amazon buyout, I have no clue. Now it's kind of politics," Vikander explained. "I think Misha and I have been ready, so it's kind of in somebody else's hands, to be honest."

The Tomb Raider video game series was first adapted into films, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life, in 2001 and 2003, with Angelina Jolie in the lead role.