The high-tension story behind one of the world’s most popular puzzle games arrives March 31.
Apple TV+ will begin streaming Tetris, its dramatic original movie about the development and release of the famous puzzle game of the same name, on March 31. The streaming platform’s official Twitter account also released a trailer for the film on Thursday.
With production originally revealed back in 2020, this Tetris film stars Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers. The Dutch-born video game entrepreneur was the key architect of negotiating and securing the rights to the Tetris game for Nintendo’s consoles, particularly the iconic portable version on the Game Boy. The story of that escalating legal battle is one that featured intercontinental intrigue, including Rogers’ trip to the Soviet Union to negotiate directly with Elorg, the company that held the original rights to Tetris, as well as his meeting and befriending of Alexey Pajitnov, the original creator of the game.
The new trailer shows off how this story has been effectively adapted into a dramatized thriller of a movie. Produced by Matthew Vaughn and directed by Jon S. Baird, the movie will also include Nikita Efremov as Alexey Pajitnov and Toby Jones as Robert Stein. Stein had obtained licensing rights to Tetris years ahead of Rogers’ efforts via his own legal maneuvering. The ensuing dispute appears to form the backbone of the film’s plot, alongside interactions with Soviet authorities, as well as the story of Rogers trying to sell the appeal of the Tetris game to publishers, including Nintendo. The trailer also shows off a few game-style pixelation effects enhancing the action, notably in a car chase at one point, though it remains uncertain how these kinds of gimmicks will wind up deployed in the actual film.
This isn’t the first time the story behind Tetris has been dramatized. In 2016, First Second published a graphic novel penned by Brian “Box” Brown titled Tetris: The Games People Play.
In another release that’s fortuitously timed, that original Game Boy version of Tetris, which was brought about by Rogers’s negotiations, just became available to play via the Nintendo Switch Online service.
