‘Tomb Raider’ Casts ‘Into The Badlands’ Star Daniel Wu
Lara Croft will have a new buddy in theTomb Raideradaptation.Into the BadlandsstarDaniel Wuhas just joinedAlicia VikanderandWalton Gogginsin the upcoming adventure, which is being directed byRoar Uthaug(The Wave). Wu is no stranger to video game adaptations, having played Gul’dan (through the power of mo-cap) in last year’sWarcraft. More on theTomb RaiderDaniel Wu casting below.
Varietybroke news of theTomb RaiderDaniel Wu casting. He’ll play Lu Ren, described as “a ship captain who partners with Croft on a quest to find her father.” As far as I can tell, he’s a character invented just for the movie. Goggins wasrecently setto portray the villain, though further details about that character have not been revealed. Vikander, of course, is the leading lady.
Though born and raised in the U.S., Wu first rose to fame in Hong Kong and China as a protégé of Jackie Chan’s, starring in dozens of Chinese-language films over the past couple of decades. But his profile has gone up in Hollywood over the past couple of years as well. He’s probably best known here as the taciturn lead of AMC’s martial arts fantasy dramaInto the Badlands, and he had a major role as the villain in this summer’sWarcraft. His other credits includeEuropa ReportandThe Man with the Iron Fists.
TheTomb Raiderreboot had been in development for years but really started to pick up steam around 2015 when Warner Bros. scooped it up. As explained by producerGraham King, film is a sort of origin story that picks up with Lara on one of her first grand adventures:
Well this is kind of what we call a ‘back to the roots story’. This is a young Lara Croft in search to see if her father is dead or alive, so it has a very emotional part to it and I think that’s what Alicia found so interesting about it. I think the storytelling is really good and I think we’ve got the right crew and a great director and I think it’s going to be really fun making a film like this.
