Cashing in on the success of video games

So it’s been confirmed that there is to be a new Tomb Raider movie sometime in the near future, on the back of the incredibly successful release of the latest game. While the details are very small at this point in time, I am already not looking forward to this latest attempt by Hollywood to break the mould and actually manage a good video game based production.

You just have to look at past examples of their attempts to cash in to see that it’s going to be an epic failure. The other Tomb Raider movies were of little to no substance and merely 90 minute long eye candy fests. The Resident Evil movies were destroyed on the first attempt by Paul Anderson and have now became so stupid that they’re not even worth watching for a laugh. Five movies later, we’re going to see Alice working along with Wesker to save the world from Umbrella. Up until the fourth movie, Wesker was still working for the Umbrella corp while anyone who knows anything of the Resident Evil lore would be able to tell you that after the mansion incident (The first movie), Wesker left and formed the HCF (Hive Capture Force) organisation. These movies are aimed at fans of the games, yet cannot even follow the basic story.

I’ve just been informed that Megan Fox has turned down the role of Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider which isn’t a bad thing, but at the same time is. The fact that she was even being asked says to me that it’s going to be nothing more than another movie aimed at the pre pubescent teenage boy with 90 minutes of a girl running around with her boobs hanging out and not really giving the story any real sort of attempt.

So, here are my predictions for the Tomb Raider movie..

1. Lara Croft will be played by someone with no real acting talent but she’ll have a nice rack.
2. The movie will come with a 12 certificate to allow the teenage boys to go and stare at Lara’s breasts.
3. It will make no attempts to actually go deeply into the story of the new game, but substitute the fight for survival with scenes of Lara covered in mud or just generally with a wet top.
4. It will be no longer than 90 minutes long, 60 minutes of which will be body shots of Lara.
5. It will be directed by someone with a less than successful pedigree in Hollywood.

I hope I am wrong about all this, I really do. I think that if written properly and given to someone with real vision and creativity to direct than it possibly could be a good movie. It would greatly depend on who is cast as Lara but with the way Hollywood is these days, with the bilge that is churned out time after time after time and with Megan Fox having been asked to play Lara, I seriously doubt I’m wrong.