We’re getting a Tetris movie! Not a film adaptation of the game, mind you—we can’t even imagine how that’d work. No, this is all about the more-or-less actual events that resulted in Tetris making its way over the Iron Curtain and onto screens across the western world. And Tetris will be streaming everywhere from March 31 on Apple TV+.
You’ve played Tetris, of course—who hasn’t? And in case you need a refresher, it’s here. But despite its current ubiquity, it’s a miracle it ever became a household name.
It was the Cold War, you see, and the Soviet Union and, well, pretty much everywhere else were bitter enemies. So, when video game designer Henk Rogers (Taron Edgerton) comes across a fiendishly addictive game designed by Russian citizen Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov) he has a big problem: the USSR has no intellectual property rights – all creative endeavours belong to the state. Would it even be possible to negotiate a licensing deal with the Kremlin? Well, there’s only one way to find out…
All this is broadly true, but it looks like director Jon S. Baird (Filth) and screenwriter Noah Pink (Genius) have decided to print the legend just a little bit—or at the very least infuse the proceedings with the pep and verve of a snappy 1960s spy thriller. Tetris seems to be, in all seriousness, a kind of economic spy thriller, delving into all the dirty dealings, posturing and skulduggery that goes down when the Capitalist West and the Communist East are forced to interface.
The fact that it’s all over a video game, the now-ubiquitous Tetris, gives the whole thing an absurd quality, and it’s clear that star Taron Edgerton is smartly leaning into that, adding to the sense of fun. A week ago we would have said the idea of a Tetris movie was ridiculous, but it looks like this could be a real blockbuster. (sorry)
