Trivia / Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Angelina Jolie agreed to do the first film because of all the locations she would get to visit. She fell in love with Cambodia, leading her to move there and help with a minefield cleanup. It was also where she met and eventually adopted her first son, Maddox.
• California Doubling: Iceland doubled as Siberia.
• The Cast Showoff: Jolie did most of her own stunts, with the production crew even revealing that the stunt woman trying to do the pundulum swing got motion sickness, while Jolie did it herself just fine. There is also a scene where Lara plays with a switchblade, just as Jolie collects knives in real life.
• Creator Backlash: Daniel Craig admitted he did not enjoy working on the first film during an interview with the Telegraph a year after its release, citing the film's script as one of his issues.
  Daniel Craig: Tomb Raider slowed things down for me. It was the worst mistake I’ve made. But it was also a good lesson. The script on that was all over the f*** place, waffling on about eight foot f*** green monkeys or some such b**locks and I could just never get my head around what was supposed to be going on. Angie had it worse, she was in every scene and had to take all the s*** afterwards. But personally I should never have said yes. I felt like a bit of a spare p*** at a wedding throughout. I probably looked like one too.
• Executive Meddling: Surprisingly, in regards to the music. They changed two different musicians and in the end picked up Graeme Revell, giving him 10 days to travel to London from Australia, writing the whole OST from nothing, blending it with already picked songs, orchestrating it and adding it to the film right before the premiere. The film was advertised under U2's Elevation, so no one was really concerned that there was no OST until the last few days before release. This ended up with a really rushed musical production and many similarities with his previous work, Pitch Black. Later, Revell made up for what even he considered poor work and remastered the whole track, adding 3 new pieces (with a much better, but unused main theme).
• Fake American: English Daniel Craig as the American Alex West.
• Fake Brit: Angelina Jolie and her father, Jon Voight, are both American, playing British aristocrats.
• Hostility on the Set: The scenes with Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight were filmed separately and by use of a split screen as both were still estranged at the time.
• Missing Trailer Scene: "This is where I start to have fun."
• No Stunt Double: Angelina Jolie did her own Bungee-Ballet, and injured her ankle on the first take when landing on top of a chandelier went bad, so that part of the scene had to be done over again after she recovered.
• Promoted Fanboy: Daniel Craig was the only castmember on the film who was a fan of the games though he came to regret his role in the movie.
• Reality Subtext: Not only were Lara and Richard Croft played by a real-life daughter and father (Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight), but their brief scene even replicates aspects of their strained real life relationship, with her Calling the Old Man Out for being a Disappeared Dad, then telling him she misses him and wishes she could change the past.
• Real-Life Relative: Jolie's real life father, Jon Voight, as Lara Croft's dad, Lord Richard Croft. In fact this film was a significant factor in repairing their strained relationship.
• The Red Stapler: Lara Croft's weapons, twin H&K USP Match with stainless slides. Sales skyrocketed, causing even airsoft replicas to cost as much as the real thing. Purportedly, Angelina Jolie owns a pair herself.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Amongst the candidates to play Lara Croft included Christina Applegate, Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Elizabeth Hurley, Milla Jovovich, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, Denise Richards, Charlize Theron, Uma Thurman, Liv Tyler and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
  • Nathan McCree and Michael Kamen were originally set to score the film at various points, but due to Executive Meddling, Graeme Revell was selected as a last-minute replacement.
  • Martin Clunes was originally asked to play Lara's butler, but filming dates clashed with his wedding anniversary (he makes a special point of never working on his anniversary), so he turned it down.

---