Now that Alicia Vikander has signed on to play Lara Croft in MGM's Tomb Raider reboot, the studio has found the project's main villain. Walton Goggins is in final negotiations to join the cast as the primary bad guy, although no details about the character have been revealed. It was recently confirmed that this reboot will be based on Square Enix's 2013 video game reboot, that followed a younger Lara Croft at the age of 21, as she goes on her very first adventure.

Variety broke the news on this casting, which comes just weeks after producer Graham King revealed the first plot details. The story will follow Alicia Vikander's Lara Croft as she goes searching for her long-missing father. Director Roar Uthaug (The Wave) revealed in March that this will be an origin story, and that he wants to portray Lara Croft as a "real human being" in this reboot. It isn't stated whether Walton Goggins' character is based on someone from the video game, or a brand new character.

This reboot has been in the works for many years, with producer Graham King's GK Films picking up the franchise rights in 2011 as he began developing this Tomb Raider reboot. Olivia Wilde was being eyed for Lara Croft even before Graham King picked up the rights, with a number of writers working on the script in the years that followed, such as Hawk Ostby & Mark Fergus (Iron Man), Evan Daugherty (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Marti Noxon (Fright Night), before Geneva Robertson-Dworet came aboard. Geneva Robertson-Dworet was part of the Transformers writers room for Paramount, who is also attached to write Sherlock Holmes 3 and Dungeons & Dragons.

Last September, three female directors were said to be on the studio's short list for Tomb Raider, Kathryn Bigelow, Catherine Hardwicke and Mimi Leder, before Roar Uthaug won the job. Back in July, MGM set a March 16, 2018 release date for Tomb Raider, a date which isn't occupied by any other projects yet, although it falls between Disney's Wreck-It Ralph 2 (March 9, 2018) and 20th Century Fox's Annubis (March 23, 2018). This younger Lara Croft reboot has a chance to become just the third video game adaption to earn more than $100 million domestically, following in the footsteps of the original Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie ($131.2 million) and this year's The Angry Birds Movie ($107.5 million).

Graham King is producing Tomb Raider through his GK Films company along with Tim Headington. Walton Goggins most recently starred on the big screen in Quentin Tarantino's Western revenge thriller The Hateful Eight, but he has also been keeping busy on the small screen as well. The actor recently starred alongside Danny McBride in the HBO comedy series Vice Principals, which has been renewed for a second season. He also stars in the History Channel's mini-series Six next year, which follows the exploits of Seal Team Six.