TOMB RAIDER MOVIE EXPOSED BY BOESKY
Copyright 2006 www.tombraiderchronicles.com

[ January 27th 2006 ]

Keith Boesky - president of Eidos Interactive in 1997 and responsible for porting Lara Croft to the silver screen care of Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie - has spoken to Yahoo! about Hollywood's current fascination with converting console gems to motion picture blockbusters.

"In 1996, Hollywood had no interest in video games after debacles like Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter: The Movie," said Boesky. "No one wanted to talk about action movies with a strong female lead." Boesky was against the idea of turning Tomb Raider into a movie, but followed through on his boss' orders.

"When we returned to Hollywood in 1997, the movie studios looked at Lara Croft as a property that could appeal to female teens in the wake of Titanic, which was carried by 14-year-old girls," said Boesky, who said every Hollywood studio was interested.

Regarding the current trend of Hollywood's infatuation of video games as fodder for films, Boesky isn't a fan of taking a game property and "watering it down" to appeal to the mainstream theater-goer.

"I don't think the Tomb Raider movie was the best thing for the property," said Boesky, who doesn't believe there's ever a single reason, creatively or financially, to turn any game into a film. "The release of the Tomb Raider game and the film could have been better coordinated. It's Eidos' job to make a game fit with the film release schedule because the film is the larger investment."

Keith Boesky continues to qualify the interest in video-game come multiplex trend, and briefly touches on a third Tomb Raider movie reportedly being negotated by Paramount Pictures. The full article - care of Yahoo! - can be found below.

The Man Who Licensed Tomb Raider