The latest "Tomb Raider" franchise may go down under, as many people are anticipating Gold Coast to become shooting location. Nevertheless, low filming incentive by Australian government may obstruct the final decision to be made.
Oscar-winning Swedish actress Alicia Vikander will replace Angelina Jolie to play Lara Croft in the movie. Speculation about filming in Australia broke out when Brian Horton, one of the "Tomb Raider’s" game director tweeted a photo from Gold Coast Bulletin, an Australian newspaper.
As Attack of the Fanboy reported, the Australian newspaper wrote “Lara Croft could be packing her weapons for the Gold Coast with Tomb Raider set to be the next blockbuster filmed here. Multiple movie industry insiders say the next installment of the video game adaptation starring Oscar winner Alicia Vkiander would “almost certainly” start filming on the Coast in February.“
However some obstacles may curb the decision to film in Gold Coast Australia. According to KFTV, few days earlier, Australia has lost the chance to become the filming location. The report said that limitation of Australia’s filming incentive may force the producer to relocate the filming to South Africa.
It is said that the film producer has requested Australian federal government to elevate the location offset from 16.5 percent to 30 percent. Nevertheless, the Australian government could not make decision in time, so the producer decided to film elsewhere.
Beforehand, Screen Queensland CEO Tracey Vieira told Gold Coast Bulletin that Queensland state government has granted $30 million funding over four years to lock in back-to-back productions.
The franchise started as the action-adventure game developed for Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation and Microsoft Windows in 1996.
Its storyline is about the adventure of an archeologist Lara Croft in her journey around the world to search lost artifacts. The franchise Raider gained a huge success in the beginning of 2000, when “Tomb Raider Chronicles” game, the fifth version of Tomb Raider series was launched. As the game continue did well, the game was adapted in the movie starring Angelina Jolie in 2001 and 2003.
The first installment, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” gained $274.7 million. The success of the firsf movie was soon followed by the second one “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” in 2003.
