The slightly different video game adaptation: First crazy trailer for ‘Tetris,’ with ‘Kingsman’ star
Andreas Rivera
February 17, 2023 6:51 am
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3 min read
Apple TV has released the first trailer for ‘Tetris,’ in which Taron Egerton fights for the rights to the most valuable game of the ’90s.
The Nintendo Game Boy came onto the market in 1989 (1990 in Europe). Despite its antiquated performance and monochrome display, the handheld sold like hotcakes, thanks not only to its phenomenal playing time of up to 30 hours with four AA batteries and its comparatively small size at the time, but also to the game that came with every Game Boy sold in North America and Europe: Tetris.
The puzzle game had a highly addictive factor and captivated not only children but also adults, with playing a round during the long break at school being just as common as it was during the lunch break at the office. To this day, it has lost none of its charm, thanks to its simple yet complex gameplay. It’s no wonder that the title has by far reached the top of the best-selling video games of all time across all platforms, with around 520 million copies sold.
There will soon be a film about how the game was able to make it around the world and become a success story, despite the veritable rights war that broke out around it, during which every company involved believed it owned the rights. Furthermore, a very real hurdle had to be cleared: Paschitnov was living in the Soviet Union at the time, so ‘Tetris’ was a matter of state. The first trailer for the film is already available.
The really fast-paced trailer makes one thing clear: the fight for the rights to ‘Tetris’ was at least as exciting as the game that millions of video game enthusiasts would find under the Christmas tree in the coming years, or receive for their birthdays and other occasions. Director Jon S. Baird (‘Drecksau’) and screenwriter Noah Pink (‘The Show’) may have taken some creative license, but overall the story corresponds to the true events of Henk Rogers.
“Tetris”: The fight behind the scenes
“Tetris” sheds light on the compelling story behind the most successful video game title of all time. In 1988, the computer game developer Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) discovered it at a computer fair. Convinced of its potential, he obtained the exploitation rights for the Japanese market directly through his company, Bullet-Proof Software, and approached the video game giant Nintendo, which was about to release its new Game Boy development. After a few unsuccessful attempts to secure the handheld rights, Rogers decided to risk everything and fly directly to Moscow to contact both the authorities responsible and the developer himself. It was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted to this day between Rogers and Alexei Leonidovich Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov).
In addition to Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers and Nikita Efremov as Alexei Leonidovich Pajitnov, the film also features Toby Jones, Sofya Lebedeva, Ben Miles, Rick Yune, Robert Allam, Togo Igawa, and Ieva Andrejevaite. “Tetris” will be available on Apple TV+ on March 31, 2023. Just a few days later, on April 6, 2023, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will be released, making it a great time for Nintendo fans.
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