Tasha Huo, the showrunner of Netflix’s upcoming animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft admitted that she wrote the show “as much for little girls as I write it for big girls.”
A screenshot from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
In an interview with IGN’s Katie Reul about the show, Huo was asked if the animation would make the series interesting for a younger audience.
Huo replied, “Yeah, I always wanted it to be something that everyone could see. If you’re playing this game and you have young kids, you can sit down and watch it and enjoy this world with them. It’s kind of a gateway drug into video gaming when you’re younger, but I also definitely wrote it for us, for adults, for people who have played the games their whole lives and really enjoyed them. And so the themes are very adult.”
“There’s still a lot of violence, but you’re right, the animation makes it seem less graphic and it creates a bigger space for more people to enjoy it, which I hope it does,” she added.
Huo concluded, “I’m writing it for little girls as well as big girls.”
A screenshot from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
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Huo was also asked whether she took any creative liberties in reimagining the character for a 2024 audience.
She replied: “I really wanted to capture the Lara I fell in love with as a little girl, someone who doesn’t take any nonsense, who stands up for herself in every situation and defends herself against every bad guy – man, woman, it doesn’t matter.”
“She’s going to do what she wants, no matter who stands in her way… When we were writing and animating, it was so important to us to show Lara as strong every step of the way. Even when she’s at her lowest point, she’s going to find that strength within herself, and that’s always what inspires me with her and has inspired me on the show,” she explained.
Lara Croft jumps into a pit in Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
Huo continued, “And to bring it into the present and outside of the games, I also wanted to learn more about her relationships. She’s so alone in the games. You feel like she has people here and there, but she must care about people.”
“And I think that was part of bringing it into the present: How does this woman who is so incredibly tough and can do so much on her own interact with people? How does she make friends? And that doesn’t have to make her vulnerable, because she loves other people,” she explained. “So it’s about exploring that kind of dichotomy of being vulnerable with friends but still being an incredible go-getter.”
A scene from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
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Huo had previously revealed that the series would attempt to unify Tomb Raider’s various timelines. In October 2021, she said, “The team at Crystal Dynamics is working hard to unify Tomb Raider’s timelines, and we are very excited to be part of that effort.”
She later added: “I’ve always wondered how Lara Croft became such an epic and brilliant heroine. She’s so cool, so calm under pressure, and also quite funny. With that in mind, the Tomb Raider anime series from Legendary Television and Netflix will offer fans like you and me around the world some of the first steps in unifying the Tomb Raider timelines as we move beyond the Survivor Trilogy and begin to follow Lara’s journey leading up to the opening steps of the first Tomb Raider game.”
Huo added: “Part of this great task now is to bring together pieces from the different Tomb Raider eras, including some of Lara’s friends and allies. That’s why I’m so excited to introduce you to two more actors who will be joining us on this wild journey: Earl Baylon, who reprises his role as Jonah Maiava from the Survivor trilogy, and Allen Maldonado, who voices the character Zip from Tomb Raider Chronicles, legendAnd Underworld.”
She concluded by saying: “Believe me when I say that we have an exciting road ahead of us and I can hardly wait to welcome you!”
A scene from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
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Huo revealed more details about this and how she designed the show to unify the timelines in her interview with IGN: “ I had all the canon in mind because we were coming from the Survivor series, so you had to honor who (Lara Croft) was – the person she was in those games – but turn her into the person she was in the games we all started playing – those early ’90s games where she’s just a completely different person. And so it was really exciting to have Lara become that person.”
“‘How does someone who is like Lara from Survivor Series turn into that person? What drives her to become that person?’ (Those were) just the best questions to grapple with, and it was really exciting to incorporate more humor, which is what I loved about her early days,” Huo said. “It was really fun to kind of combine those two canons.”
A scene from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
Huo further noted that she will try to give Lara warmth, as she previously perceived her as cold since she was written for a man.
She said: “I think it was fun to have a scene where she’s doing an incredible feat of strength or agility or whatever – the Lara thing – and then another scene where she’s hugging a friend and commiserating with her. I think that’s something we really wanted to explore in terms of Lara’s femininity.”
“Because she was historically written by men, she was a rather cold character, and I know she’s not like that. So that was the exciting part, to look behind the veil of her everyday life, so to speak,” she said.
A screenshot from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
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The official synopsis of the show reads: “Picking up after the events of the highly successful Survivor trilogy of the Tomb Raider video game (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider), the animated series TOMB RAIDER: THE LEGEND OF LARA CROFT will chronicle the globetrotting heroine’s next chapter as an iconic adventurer. More than 25 years after her first appearance, Lara Croft (voice: Hayley Atwell) continues to explore ancient mysteries and uncover lost truths in stunning and dangerous locations.”
“Following the events of the Survivor series, Lara Croft has left her friends to embark on increasingly dangerous solo adventures. But she must return home when a dangerous and powerful Chinese artifact is stolen from Croft Manor by a thief with an eerie personal connection. Her daring quest takes her on an adventure around the world and into the depths of forgotten tombs, where she will be forced to confront her true self and decide what kind of hero she wants to become,” it concludes.
A screenshot from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (2024), Netflix
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