Tetris movie nearly became magical adventure – creator reveals

Biographical drama tells story of how game was created and distributed despite political roadblocks

The Tetris brand makes its movie debut with a biographical drama about the origins of the puzzle video game, but the film nearly became a fantastical adventure with magical elements. That’s according to both the creator of the game and the man who helped spread it globally: Tetris Co. co-founders Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers. They are the executive producers of Tetris, now available to watch on Apple TV+. Jon S. Baird directed the film.

Previous attempts to bring Tetris to the big screen were very different in tone

Following in the footsteps of Sonic the Hedgehog, Uncharted, Warcraft and many more series, Tetris is the latest video game franchise to get the cinematic treatment. Over the decades since the game’s release, there have been a number of near-misses for a Tetris movie, with wildly different tones.

Original project had “some kind of interesting magic team”

“Yeah, it was a project about some kind of interesting magic team,” Pajitnov told Newsweek, discussing previous attempts to bring the Tetris brand to the big screen. In 2014, movie company Threshold Entertainment announced it would be making an “epic sci-fi story” inspired by Tetris, then reports in 2016 suggested it could become a trilogy of movies. “It was going to be a magical kind of story based on the Tetris items, but what came out now is much more significant and interesting, in my opinion,” Pajitnov said.

Tetris biographical drama is now available on Apple TV+

The Apple TV+ movie tells the story of how Tetris was created in the Soviet Union and eventually distributed across the world, despite political roadblocks. Rocketman’s Taron Egerton stars as Rogers, while Russian theater actor Nikita Efremov plays Pajitnov. Pajitnov, who grew up in the Soviet Union, said it’s significant that the movie is coming out now when things look “hopeless” in his country of birth.

Filmmakers capture Soviet Union atmosphere of perestroika era

When it came to representing Russia in the 1980s, Pajitnov said, the creatives behind the scenes nailed it. “What they really did in this movie is [capture] the spirit and the sense of the Soviet Union of the time of perestroika. The perestroika spirit and dark time of this communist era. Everything is in the movie, and that was a very accurate kind of spiritual reconstruction,” Pajitnov said.

Rogers advises new game designers to copyright their games right away

Rogers, who was instrumental in bringing Tetris to Western audiences, said it’s a different landscape now compared to when he entered gaming in the 1980s. “The creators of games like Wordle or Candy Crush, they’re not very famous, and they don’t protect their IP very well, so there are lots of ‘me too’ games that come out that are confusingly similar. So my advice to new game designers is: Make sure you copyright your game right away before you release it,” Rogers said.

Much more about the people behind the game than the game itself

Rogers was also pleased that the film was much more about the people involved in creating Tetris than the game itself. “I really liked that this is a movie about people. Yeah, it’s a game, but it’s a movie about people. It’s a movie about friendship. So I am much more happy with this than a Lego Movie,’ Rogers said.

Tetris premiered globally on Apple TV+

On Friday, Tetris premiered globally on Apple TV+.

Credit: https://www.newsweek.com/tetris-movie-interviews-creators-glad-didnt-go-lego-movie-route-1791495

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