TROUBLE AHEAD FOR LARA CROFT
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com Source: www.comingsoon.net

[ May 30th 2001 ]

Reaction to Paramount Pictures Tomb Raider motion picture, which was privately screened last Thursday in Portland ahead of it's June 15th nationwide release, has been mixed, and this latest report from rumour mill Coming Soon suggests their could be trouble ahead in the Lara Croft camp:

Remember when word broke that Michael Kamen had left the scoring duties on "Tomb Raider" and Graeme Revell took over, well, we've received word from a very reliable source that a change of composer was not the only thing that went down. We know there was a test screening in Portland on Thursday, May 24th - but the reaction from the screening was overall not too hot. Our source tells us that... "Simon West turned in a terrible edit, virtually unwatchable and a sure bomb. So the studio took the film away from him and gave it to an editor to completely re-cut. It's changed so much that they are completely re-doing the score, and bleeding money in round-the-clock overtime in order to get the film finished in time." This can be backed-up by a recent report on AICN who said Lloyd Levin and his partner Lawrence Gordon ("Boogie Nights," "Mystery Men") are working overtime right now to make sure that when June 15th hits, Lara Croft is ready for her debut adventure.

Interesting news about Simon West's cut, however, let's hope Levin & Gordon pull through.

Ironically, Dark Horzons countered the Tomb Raider fears with this report today posted by Vault Raider:

"Paramount did not like the cut Simon West turned in many, many, weeks ago. As was the case on MI2, Stuart Baird was brought in to re-edit the film and it was his version that was screened in Portland last week. "The AICN report references this from the mention of Stuart. This screening was overall very positive with normal tweaking of a few scenes here or there going on now. I believe they will be completed this week. The only part of the score that was altered was in the 5th reel. This was already planned to emphasize certain dramatic points anyway."