Think back, if you can, to the summer of 2001. Our phones flipped open, our jeans rose low, and America was going to be on top of the world forever. An arrogant nation allowed Staind, Creed, and the gentlemen known as Limp Bizkit to approach the summit of the Billboard 200. In theaters, Shrek had just been released on an unsuspecting world, and people willingly paid money to see Pearl Harbor and Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes. Don’t let the zoomers yearning for the Y2K they never witnessed fool you; the times were bleak.
Into this troubling milieu strode Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, released 25 years ago today. While not even the year’s most successful archeology 'em up (that honor belongs to The Mummy Returns), it raked in nearly $275 million and reached 14th place at America’s benighted domestic box office, a record-smashing success for a video game movie that wouldn’t be bested until 2010. And much like the success of an album called Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water says a lot about where America’s psyche was at, Tomb Raider’s success can tell us how gaming movies, and the broader gaming industry, were doing.
