Only a couple of months ago, we got our first look at Sophie Turner as Lara Croft in Amazon’s upcoming Tomb Raider TV show. At the same time, shooting for the series began. But now it already seems to have run into a potentially major setback.
As reported by The Sun, production has been paused two and a half months after it started due to Turner suffering a back injury. The publication claims she discovered a pre-existing issue with her back during training for the series last year, which has then been worsened by the demanding filming schedule until she was no longer able to continue.
“Sophie Turner recently experienced a minor injury,” confirmed a spokesperson for Prime Video to Variety. “As a precaution, production has briefly paused to allow her time to recover. We look forward to resuming production as soon as possible.”
It’s easy to imagine how physically demanding the role of Lara Croft must be—given the source material and the high budget, the show is likely full of action and stunts, just like the various Tomb Raider films we’ve (sort of) enjoyed over the years. So the star suffering a physical injury of some kind is unfortunate but very understandable (and of course we wish Turner only the best in her recovery).
It may be extremely bad news for Amazon, however. Given the scale of the project, any pause in filming is likely to be an expensive prospect, and two and a half months seems very far into production to entertain the idea of pivoting to a different lead actor.
If Turner requires a long recovery time, the fate of the show could well be in the balance—and even if she does bounce back in time to complete season one on schedule, it raises the question of whether she’ll be willing or able to commit to a season two or beyond. As any fan of Netflix’s The Witcher can tell you, recasting the lead role between seasons can be a very difficult trick to pull off.
As it stands the series does not have a confirmed release date, and it’s unclear whether this situation will cause any delays to its launch.
Here’s hoping things are going rather better with the two big new Tomb Raider videogames in the works—though the repeated layoffs at Crystal Dynamics over the last year don’t paint the rosiest picture there either. Sometimes it feels like somewhere in all those expeditions to disturb ancient sacred sites, Lara unleashed a deadly curse on her own franchise.
