Tetris doesn’t seem like a property that would lend itself well to a movie. It has no story or characters at all for a start. It looks like something that just wouldn’t fit into the standard narrative frame of a major motion picture.
That is, it doesn’t make sense as a movie based on the game itself. If you look into the story that surrounds the making of Tetris, you find there is a lot to work with there.
It’s a good thing that the creators of the upcoming adaptation appear to agree with me because that’s what they’re basing the movie on.
The history of Tetris features the USSR, The KGB, and international licensing agreements. There is a complicated web of political interference and a tragic element involving the game’s co-creator .
The larger story about the legal drama has fodder for a dramatic movie, and that’s what we appear to be getting, thankfully. Not some awful sci-fi adventure adaptation like that fan trailer from nearly a decade ago.
A proper historical drama piece surrounding the legal troubles Tetris faced also has other benefits. This sort of serious drama movie from a major studio shows just how much the medium is growing up, even if some gamers never will.
The best news about the new Tetris movie is that it is going to star Tarron Egerton of the Kingsman series . Not only is he a decent actor, but he’s shown his power in biopic dramas with movies like Eddie the Eagle and Rocketman.
If someone is going to bring the real-world struggle that went on to the big screen, Tarron Egerton probably has a decent chance of making that entertaining. Plus, Matthew Vaugn is producing, and he did a decent job with Kingsman and Kick-Ass.
If we want a robust set of video game adaptations, we need some more serious works. I don’t mean serious in the way that a grim, gritty, Call of Duty adaptation would be serious. I just mean that we need someone to not dismiss a serious drama because it’s also about video games. Tetris might just be the first movie to really do that.