She Must Have Something on Everyone
Phoebe Waller-Bridge has successfully jumped from the sinking Indiana Jones franchise before it goes underwater or even (technically) hit the iceberg yet. She will continue her rampage through the pop culture which she clearly doesn’t like, has never been a part of, and has no interest in beyond the stream of paychecks that get sent her way.
Having been instrumental in the destruction of Star Wars, James Bond, and Indiana Jones, Phoebe is moving on to video games.
From: Bounding into Comics
Waller-Bridge spoke to IGN where she confirmed she is working on Prime Video’s plans for Tomb Raider and informed the outlet on what she’s learned from working on both James Bond and Indiana Jones.
She told the outlet, “There’s so much I can incorporate. I mean, the character of Lara Croft was inspired by Indiana Jones and James Bond. So there’s so much, and it just felt like the perfect final step in my own personal adventure through this kind of franchise world.”
So yeah, Fleabag is going to be helping reimagine Lara Croft.
Everybody else in Hollyweird is using the strike to enact Force Majeure clauses in the overpriced contracts they signed back when every studio was chasing the $20 Billion Dragon. Everyone is taking a long hard look at what has so epically failed for the last few years.
But not Amazon!
Jennifer Salke not only survived the Rings of Power disaster but she seems to have flourished. Rings had already started its second season when the writer’s strike kicked off (is the chatbot that wrote it a union member?). No second thoughts about the Woke at Amazon. All of the studios still have feminist grift projects that were developed in the Trump years still in the chute. The plan is to edit them into something watchable and shovel them out the door. But so far, Amazon is the only one putting new strong whamen projects in the pipeline. Remember Amazon Prime simply doesn’t have to make a profit because it’s designed from the ground up to be a loss leader. It’s just one more reason to have Amazon Prime. Amazon Video’s real money maker is VOD licenses and ads on FreeVee videos.
Poor old Lara is getting it coming and going. MGM owned the film and TV rights, which means Amazon now owns them. Embracer Group bought up Lara Croft a while back. Given that their super megadeal is dead in the water (my money says it was with Amazon but they aren’t saying who pulled the plug on them), Embracer is going to need big lines of credit, which means they will have to go hat in hand to the big three of Vanguard, Black Rock, and State Street, all of whom will demand Embracer go seriously Woke if they want those lines of credit. So, Lara was already doomed.
Truthfully, it doesn’t really matter. Square Enix got the character completely wrong when they rebooted Lara Croft for Rise of the Tomb Raider. Croft was never supposed to be a nice girl, she was way too high on the hot-crazy matrix for anything like that. She was selfish, a bit psychotic, greedy, and as the name implies, a tomb raider. But in 2015 a perfectly good Gary Stu was turned into a Mary Sue. Sexy, hot pants-wearing, two-gun-Mojo-wielding Lara was banished in favor of Dark and Gritty Lara. This made her a “better” character.
I admit I’m starting to admire Fleabag’s ability to survive in Hollywood. She leaps from project to project as Hollywood’s favorite feminist purse-puppy hire. She leaves utter destruction in her wake and has no trouble at all getting on her next A-list project. Truthfully, it’s not that big a shock that she does as well as she does. The women executives that hire her see themselves in her. Overpromoted, underqualified, and riding a streak of luck more than any kind of genuine talent or ability or worth.
Or maybe Phoebe just has something on everyone.
In any case, don’t cry for Lara Croft. She was already dead.
