According to Deadline, Netflix and Legendary’s new Tomb Raider anime series has added the talents of Allen Maldonado (The Last OG, Black-ish) and Earl Baylon who appeared in one of the original Tomb Raider games: Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
While Baylon will be reprising his role from the video game as Jonah Maiava, the voice of reason and trusted friend of the series’s heroine, Lara Croft, played by Hayley Atwell.
Maldonado will be playing a new character to the lore named Zip, the tech expert and close colleague to Lara Croft.
The series will pick up following the events of the reboot game trilogy (Tomb Raider 2013, Rise of the Tomb Raider 2015, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2018) with Croft exploring new tombs across the world. The show will be written by its own executive producer Tasha Huo (The Witcher: Blood Origin, Red Sonja).
Maldonado has recently been working on Starz’s new show, Heels, playing one of the semi-pro wrestlers, and he also stars in a recurring role on ABC’s remake of The Wonder Years as the main character’s trusted baseball coach.
Baylon, besides his work already in the Tomb Raider mythos, worked on a one hour comedy special at the Second City Hollywood called Supportive White Parents. He was also featured in the feature film Lumpia with a Vengeance, winner of the audience award at the 2020 Hawaii International Film Festival.
The Tomb Raider franchise itself has sold more than 85 million copies since the release of the first game in 1996. The series has spawned three films since then with Angelina Jolie’s (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Maleficent) original run as Lara Croft in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and in 2003’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.
Tomb Raider was brought back to theaters in 2018 with Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl) as the titular character, and a sequel is currently still in the works.