Released in March 2023, the long story chronicles the thrilling adventure that brought the game from the Soviet Union to the world
The film will be released in March 2023 on Apple TV+ Tetris It feels like a James Bond story, with chases, betrayals and international espionage, all in the middle of the Cold War and complete with 80s hits on the soundtrack. The game turns 40 this June 6, but do you know how many movie stars? Taron Egerton Is it true and how much of it is made up?
Directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink, Tetris stars Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, the businessman who managed to secure the rights to the game for Nintendo and transformed the creation of Alexey Pajitnov (played by Nikita Yefremov) into a worldwide phenomenon.
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It wasn’t simply a matter of negotiating publishing rights, as so many publishers do with independent developers every day these days. In the 1980s, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union made things quite complicated, as Pajitnov was a programmer on the other side of the Berlin Wall.
Tetris: The True Story
Dutch game designer Henk Rogers acquired the rights to publish Tetris in Japan in 1988, after playing a demo at Summer CES in Las Vegas – this trade show, which took place in June in the United States, is the predecessor of Electronic Entertainment Expo, the E3.
In Russia, the publishing rights to Tetris belonged to a company called ELORG. In other markets, the issue was more complex: Andromeda Software, owned by Robert Stein (played in the series by Toby Jones) had the rights to the computer game outside of Russia and negotiated these rights with Mirrorsoft to publish the game in the United Kingdom. This company, run by Robert Maxwell (played by Roger Allan in the TV series), in turn, illegally negotiated the rights to the game with Atari in Japan.
That’s when Rogers made history: He purchased the rights to Tetris from Atari in 1988 and began working with Nintendo to adapt the game for the launch of the portable Game Boy. Nintendo needed the publishing rights and Henk set out to find the true owner, suspecting that Andromeda had broken its contract with ELORG. The fashion designer traveled to Moscow in search of Nikolai Belikov (played by Oleg Stefan on Apple TV+).
Parts of the journey were recorded on video and can be seen in the documentary Tetris: From Russia with Love, released by the BBC in 2004 and available on YouTube. These images also appear in the credits of Tetris on Apple TV+.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhwNTo_Yr3k
Coincidentally or not, on the same day that Henk Rogers went to Moscow to negotiate with ELORG, Kevin Maxwell (played by Anthony Boyle in the series), from Mirrorsoft, and Robert Stein, from Andromeda, were present. The three wanted to secure the rights to Tetris for handheld consoles.
Rogers showed the ELORG executive a Tetris box for video games, which shocked Belikov, as they never sold the rights to consoles, only computers. After accusing Rogers of theft, the Soviet leader met with Maxwell and Stein to accuse them of breaking the contract.
While in Moscow, Rogers befriended Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris himself, and helped draft a new contract between ELORG and Mirrorsoft, which excluded video game consoles. In the film it is implied that Stein attempted to cheat ELORG with a suspicious contract, but in the BBC documentary both Belikov and Stein claim the opposite: that Stein did not read the terms of the new contract very carefully.
Without having to worry about Stein, Rogers still had to compete with Maxwell for laptop publishing rights. The competitor offered more money, but the strength of friendship was on Rogers’ side: Tetris creator Pajitnov spoke in favor of him and ended up convincing Belikov to sell him the rights not only for laptops, but also for consoles.
Details that make the difference
The Apple TV+ film isn’t 100% faithful to the true story of Tetris, exaggerating some parts to make the plot more compelling than a business dispute. An example of this is the beautiful Sasha (Sofia Lebedeva, in the series) who works as an interpreter for Rogers and is, in fact, a KGB spy. In the film this is a great betrayal, a dramatic moment. In real life, Rogers knew Sasha was a spy when he hired her—her real name was Ola, not Sasha, anyway.
“I hired an interpreter in the hotel lobby. They were all KGB, but she was pretty and very smart, while everyone else was serious and dark.“, Rogers wrote in an article for The Guardian in 2014, marking the 30th anniversary of Tetris. “He took me to ELROG, but wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have a business visa. It was a basic rule, I couldn’t do business on a tourist visa, but I told her I wasn’t going at all“.
The car chase between Rogers and the KGB never happened, as good as it is in the movie. The designer’s journey home was very uneventful and in the BBC documentary there is footage of Rogers sleeping on the plane.
The plot involving a KGB agent who secretly worked for Maxwell is pure fiction, but it is true that the executive used his connections to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to threaten Belikov.
A legal battle over the rights to Tetris for consoles in the United States, fought between Nintendo and Atari, didn’t even appear in the film. It was a series of trials and, as we know, Nintendo won and Tetris became one of the most successful phenomena in gaming history.
Tetris is available on Apple TV+.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
