The new Tomb Raider game has just been released and it reboots the franchise returning to a younger central character that has been restyled and rebuilt both in looks and in story. Just to help along sales a little and get more marketing along with the videogame reboot comes news of the film reboot.

The film version has been talked about for some time, mainly because it has been tied into the development of this new videogame, a game which is heavily influenced by film and which is developed with a partial look to a film future as well.

We heard back in March of 2011 that the film was in development and it would be tied closely to the game and the new Lara Croft character, and the key for this production will be how well the game sells from here on out.

Speaking about the film tie in to the game simply called Tomb Raider, the head of studio at Crystal Dynamics Darrell Gallagher said through Variety explained that their influences to reboot Croft came from film as well as videogame:

"We started to look at other franchises outside of gaming...Bond and Batman are two great examples, with Bond being around for 50 years. We looked at the bold choices they made to make sure the franchise is relevant for a current audience rather than sticking to a formula that is dated."

The Tomb Raider series has sold more than thirty-five million units since it was first released in 1996 according to the article, and that makes it a hugely successful gaming franchise, something it hasn't been so easy to translate to film.

Of course people still ridicule the film versions of Tomb Raider and I'm the first to agree that Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life was nowhere near as good as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, but that first film was actually rather good fun. Action adventure, great cast, captured the character superbly well. What was wrong with it? Have you seen some of the other videogame adaptations out there?

These two originals starred Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig. Gerard Butler, Chris Barrie, Noah Taylor, Djimon Hounsou, Til Schweiger, Jon Voight, Iain Glen and Leslie Philips, a good cast indeed, plus the first was directed by Simon West with the second directed by Jan de Bont.

I liked them. I definitely liked the first film much more than the second, and the first is up there as one of the best videogame adaptations to film we've seen, and that isn't belittling the videogame adaptation.

However people didn't like them, more so the second film, and there's this desire to reboot the film series along with the game, and frankly if the opinion is that it needs rebooted then why not do it at the same time and the same way as the game. That's how it looks like it's going to happen.

GK films are the company behind the film production and are working with Crystal Dynamics on the film. It seems they are one of the many studios who are keen to work with the videogame developers to produce a better film, something that the studios are slowly catching onto. Perhaps they're more running scared as a couple of the bigger studios have already taken a huge step into their territory, Ubisoft have their own film division now working on Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon game adaptations with big names involved already.

The new Lara Croft is younger, starting out on her adventures and is more rugged and gritty than we've seen her. She appeals to the PG-13 audience much more than she did, there's a lot more to work on with her character, far less fantastical and much more reality based so it seems, ideal for the new film version too.

There's not a lot of information on when we'll see a film or how it will take shape but remember this despite this project having been going for some time it's still in the early stages, and above all if the game doesn't sell I don't think the film will however they reboot it.