Lara Croft Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life, 2003, Angelina Jolie
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (a.k.a. Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Tomb Raider 2) is a 2003 action film directed by Jan de Bont, starring actress Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. It is the second film based on the famous Tomb Raider video game series, the first being Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
Despite its over-$100 million budget, Cradle of Life grossed only $65 million in the U.S. The box office disappointment of this movie created something of a ripple effect that resulted in production of several similar movies being cancelled, most notably the James Bond spin-off from Die Another Day (2002), which was tentatively titled Jinx and was to have starred Halle Berry.
Overall, 2003 was not a good year for the Tomb Raider franchise. Paramount blamed the failure of Cradle of Life on the poor performance of the then-latest installment of the video game series, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. After numerous delays, The Angel of Darkness was rushed to shelves just over a month before the release of the movie, despite the final product being unfinished and loaded with glitches. It spawned mediocre sales while garnering less-than-favorable reviews from critics.
The Cradle of Life was originally planned to be the second in the line of three movies, which would have made it the first video game series to have a trilogy of movie adaptations, now that title belongs to the Resident Evil franchise. The harsh reviews from critics coupled with its poor box office performance resulted in a planned second sequel being scrapped by Paramount in early 2004. Jolie (after some initial reservation), stated that she was willing to do a third movie.
Despite being filmed in Hong Kong, the final movie was banned in China (except in Hong Kong and Macau) after the government complained that it portrayed their country as having "secret societies" (a scene in the movie did take place in Shanghai, but it was shot on a set and not on location).Wikipedia
