Tetris premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on March 15, 2023, and was released on March 31, by Apple TV+. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
Plot
In 1988, Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software markets his newest video game at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While there, he instead becomes enamored with the game Tetris, created by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov, who works for government-owned ELORG in the Soviet Union. Rogers explains to a bank manager that Robert Stein of Andromeda Software had obtained the worldwide licensing rights to Tetris from ELORG, and signed a contract with media tycoon Robert Maxwell and his son, CEO of Mirrorsoft, Kevin Maxwell, allowing them to distribute Tetris in exchange for game royalties. Meanwhile, the Mirrorsoft representative at CES had sold Rogers the Tetris rights in Japan for PC, console, and arcade.
Rogers obtains an audience with Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi and proposes a partnership to produce Tetris for the Nintendo Famicom and arcade machines. Shortly after beginning production, Rogers receives a call from Kevin, explaining that the arcade rights had already been promised to Sega. Rogers returns to Yamauchi, asking for his residuals in advance. Instead, he is sent to Nintendo of America headquarters in Seattle, and shown Nintendo's upcoming handheld device, the Game Boy, which is planned to be released with Super Mario Land. Rogers convinces president Minoru Arakawa and senior VP Howard Lincoln to package it with Tetris instead, and promises to obtain the handheld licensing rights.
He travels to meet with the Maxwells in London, who tell him that Stein retains all worldwide licensing rights. Rogers offers Stein $25,000 for the worldwide handheld rights, which he accepts. Later, however, Arakawa and Lincoln call Rogers explaining that Stein has now promised the handheld rights to Atari for $100,000. Kevin learns about this, and all three of them decide to travel to Moscow to personally obtain the rights.
On being told that an American businessman can't obtain a visa, Rogers obtains a tourist visa to enter Moscow. He hires Sasha, a young and seemingly naïve Russian woman as his interpreter, and despite her warnings, enters the ELORG offices. On showing a copy of Tetris for Famicom to Nikolai Belikov, the ELORG chairman, he informs Rogers that his copy is "illegal," as ELORG has not released the video game rights to Rogers. A meeting is arranged to discuss the rights.
At the first meeting, Rogers meets Alexey Pajitnov. Although Pajitnov is reluctant to speak to Rogers at first, Rogers praises him for his talent, and promises that Tetris will make Pajitnov a very wealthy man. Pajitnov invites Rogers back to his apartment, where they strike a fast friendship. Rogers helps Pajitnov improve the game's mechanics, and Pajitnov brings Rogers to a night club in Moscow. A woman says that Estonia is rebelling against the Soviet Union, and that change is coming.
Rogers, Stein, and Kevin each separately meet with Belikov to negotiate the rights. Valentin Trifonov, head of the department of foreign trade of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, grows interested in the negotiations, and involves the KGB in making sure he can profit from Tetris' potential sales. Rogers explains to Belikov that he has only sold the computer rights to Stein, since the contract defines a "computer" as a device with a keyboard, monitor, and disc drive.
The KGB threaten Rogers and his family, as well as Pajitnov and his family. Mirrorsoft offers $2 million, and drafts a letter of intent to send half the payment in one week. Pajitnov faxes the letter to Rogers, showing that Mirrorsoft will only obtain the rights to Tetris if they pay by the deadline, which they fail to do. Nintendo tells Rogers that Atari has released their own version of Tetris, but Rogers tells them they don't have the rights, and urges Lincoln and Arakawa to come to Moscow.
In a last-ditch effort to obtain the rights, Robert and Kevin Maxwell visit Mikhael Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, to warn him against selling the game to capitalist interests. Gorbachev dismisses their concerns, but on hearing about Trifonov's interest in Tetris, orders his guards to surveil him.
Nintendo offers $5 million to ELORG for console and handheld rights, which ELORG accepts. Lincoln, Arakawa, and Rogers have to leave Moscow with the paperwork to finalize the deal. Maxwell, desperate to stop them, agrees to give Trifonov 50% ownership of Tetris if he can intercept Rogers. After a car chase to the airport, the three board a plane, and Trifonov is arrested by Sasha, who was a KGB agent.
Rogers makes it back to Tokyo, and Tetris releases in the West, becoming a huge success. Just before the Soviet Union's collapse, Rogers flies Pajitnov's family to the United States. An epilogue explains that Rogers and Pajitnov went on to start The Tetris Company, and remain good friends.
In July 2020, it was reported that a biopic was being made about the making of Tetris, which will delve into the legal battles that took place during the Cold War over ownership of the game, with Jon S. Baird directing and Taron Egerton cast to portray the game publisher Henk Rogers.[3] Egerton confirmed this report in an August 2020 interview, explaining that the film would mirror a tone similar to The Social Network.[4] In November 2020, Apple TV+ acquired the film.[5]
Filming began in Glasgow in December 2020, including Glasgow Prestwick Airport on the Ayrshire coast.[6] In February 2021, filming took place in Aberdeen at locations including the University of Aberdeen's Zoology Building, which was used as the headquarters of Soviet firm Elorg,[7] and Seamount Court[8] which was used for several scenes. Filming took place for 7 days in and around the former (RAF) military base at Balado in Perth & Kinross; particularly internal scenes for a quasi-military backdrop. Production then returned to Glasgow for a few days, before wrapping in early March 2021.[9][10] Reshoots took place in 2022, and the film's release was planned for later in the year.[11]
In a 2023 interview, Alexey Pajitnov admitted that the film "didn't make an actual biography or an actual recreation of what actually happened", but that was "close enough and very right emotionally and spiritually".[12]
The film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on March 15, 2023.[13] It premiered on Apple TV+ on March 31, 2023.[14] According to a Samba TV research panel of 3.1 million smart television households who tuned in for at least one minute, Tetris drew in 88,000 viewers in its first two days.[15]
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 185 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "While it's nowhere near as addictive or fast-paced as the game, Tetris offers a fun, fizzy account of the story behind an 8-bit classic."[16]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[17]
In August 2023, Dan Ackerman,[21] the chief editor of Gizmodo, sued Apple for "illegally copying" his 2016 book The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World. Ackerman is asking the court for monetary damages of $4.8 million, which is 6% of the film's $80 million production budget.[2]
Historical accuracy
In an interview prior to the film's release, Henk Rogers said that both he and Alexey Pajitnov reviewed the script and made suggestions. However, Rogers noted, "It's a Hollywood script, a movie. It's not about history so a lot of [what's in the movie] never happened." There were events in the movie that did transpire in real life. For instance, Rogers notes that he did convince Nintendo to bundle Tetris in with the Game Boy at launch in place of Super Mario Land. Rogers emphasized that the producers wanted to "capture the darkness and the brooding" that he felt during his time trying to get the rights to Tetris in then-Soviet Russia. He continued, "They tried their best to accept our changes when they had to do with authenticity. But when it started getting into [creative flourishes like] the car chase and all that, it was like 'OK, now it's all them.' We couldn't change anything."[22]
Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times criticized the casting of Egerton, a Welsh actor of English descent, as Rogers, who is of partial Indonesian descent as whitewashing. Chang remarked in his review that the "suspension of disbelief" as Egerton "describes himself as being of partly Indonesian descent" was "tough to pull off in a story where cultural specificities are not exactly irrelevant."[23]
