Tetris starring Taron Egerton will adapt an original screenplay that tells the story of Henk Rogers, who made it his mission to secure licensing rights for Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov’s creation, Tetris. Before they achieve massive success in making Tetris happen, the pair had to go through a long grueling road. Film director Jon S. Baird sits down with Collider to discuss the film adaptation.
Baird’s Tetris is probably not the video game film fans are expecting it to be. While the director isn’t a fan of the game itself, he admitted that the reason he was drawn to the project was because of the political aspect of it. The story was set during the Cold War since that’s when the Tetris story started. Baird shares,
“Not being a huge gamer myself, I have to say the thing that attracted me more to this project was the socioeconomic, geopolitical aspect of it. I’m a politics graduate, and I was around at this time during the Cold War and during the collapse of the Soviet Union, so I was drawn to the story for that and less so for Tetris. So, I'm talking about it from that point of view, but even somebody like myself who is not, probably, the biggest gamer in the world is still very, very aware of that game and how significant and how important it is to where we've got to now with the gaming industry.”
The director also reveals that the reason they used Europe's The Final Countdown in the trailer was due to its political symbolism. On choosing The Final Countdown, he says,
“So we felt as though as a cultural, political reference, it was quite relevant because that was what people were listening to when the fall of communism started. This party that they've gone to when Henk is singing “The Final Countdown” is almost like a rebellion against the Soviet Union at that time, and they're celebrating the fact that the former Soviet Republics have started to go independent and stuff. So we thought that was a nice nod to that historical fact.”
Real Life Footage Inclusion in the Film
In the film, a real life video of Henk Rogers was seen as included in the end credits. Baird admits that doing a film based on real life events takes a longer process, especially in the end credits, since they also had to think about what to include in the film. He tells Collider,
“When you do a movie about real people, that sometimes takes longer than anything else, the end credits. The arguments you have about the wording of the cards, and how many cards are gonna be in there, and how many shots, and which shots to use, and things like that. That often takes months to decide on because it's all about the ending, everybody knows. It's what movies are judged on, really, is how people feel when they walk out of the cinema.”
Tetris starts streaming on Apple TV+ March 31