Tetris trailer portrays Cold War-era struggle to bring game to the world

The Tetris movie isn’t about falling blocks. Instead, the Apple TV+ film is a thriller about how the hugely popular game was brought out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The trailer clearly shows the struggle an entrepreneur goes through to convince a deeply suspicious communist regime to allow Tetris out of the country.

Tetris isn’t going to be like The Emoji Movie

Movies about games typically bring the games’ characters to the big screen. Considering that playing Tetris involves carefully positioning falling blocks, that’s certainly not an option for the film — it is not about anthropomorphized blocks as they live, laugh and love.

Besides, the actual backstory is at least exciting as the classic game. The upcoming Apple TV+ film shows Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers (played by Black Bird‘s Taron Egerton) discovering Tetris in 1988, and then risking everything by traveling to the Soviet Union to get the rights to put the game on the Nintendo Game Boy. Rogers teams up with inventor Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) to make Tetris into the worldwide phenomenon it became.

Apple calls the film “a Cold War–era thriller on steroids, with double-crossing villains, unlikely heroes and a nail-biting race to the finish.”

It’s “based on a true story,” which means that the negotiations over the rights to the game have likely been simplified and made more dramatic. But not made up — the real legal battle was intense.

Watch the trailer for an early look at the film:

Tetris will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on March 31, 2023. Watching comes with a $6.99-per-month subscription to Apple’s streaming service.

Source: Apple