We’ve had plenty of bad video game movies, and even a couple of decent ones to mix it up. But we’ve had few movies about the behind-the-scenes of the video game industry. In an alternate universe, we could have seen the world premiere of the “Console Wars” documentary at SXSW earlier this year. In this universe, we’re waiting for the definitive movie on “Tetris,” with Taron Egerton as the lead.
In a profile by GQ Magazine, Egerton talks about his role as Henk Rogers in the upcoming “Tetris” movie, the man who helped bring the game to the masses, and how it will be different from other video game movies. “It’s definitely more ‘Social Network‘ than ‘Lego Movie,'” Egerton says. “It’s about the rights to the game. It’s an insane true story.”
Egerton says he hopes to start filming in January, but like everything else in the industry, it’s hard to say if and how that will happen. “Everything feels unstable,” the actor says.
The story of the battle for the rights to Tetris can easily make for a drama in the vein of “the Social Network.” As the article mentions, at one point even the KGB got involved. Egerton is set to play video game licenser Henk Rogers, who made a deal with the Russian bureau handing the export of the software, and the KGB.
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In an interview with Rolling Stone, Rogers recounted how he was told the Russian government had never given rights to anybody, while he “was in deep kimchi, because I had 200,000 game cartridges at $10 apiece being manufactured in Japan, and I’d put up all of my in-laws’ property up as collateral.” In the end, bringing Tetris to a worldwide audience became a legal battle involving Nintendo, the Russian government, and Atari, lasting for three years.