Tetris

Tetris is a 2023 biographical thriller film based on true events around the race to license and patent the video game Tetris from Russia in the late 1980s during the Cold War. It was directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink. The film stars Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, and Anthony Boyle. 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.