Show of hands: prior to the Tetris movie, who already knew the best-selling video game was a product of Soviet Russia? Yeah… us neither. But as you’ll soon discover in what Apple TV+ has described as a Cold War spy thriller, this is just the tip of the surprisingly dramatic iceberg.
Starring Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) as Henk Rogers, the biographical drama tells the story of how the famed Dutch entrepreneur travelled to the Soviet Union and teamed up with Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), software engineer and game inventor, to bring Tetris to the West (and beyond).
Along the way, there are villainous KGB agents, double crosses, and an extremely tense legal battle over the pixel title’s intellectual rights. Just in case you weren’t quite sold on the premise, Egerton himself has noted it takes a page out of The Social Network’s book.
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“It’s definitely more The Social Network than Lego Movie,” Taron Egerton explained to GQ UK with a laugh when prompted about which shape he’d be playing. “It’s about the rights to the game. It’s an insane true story.”
Egerton and Efremov are joined by BAFTA-winning thespian Toby Jones as Robert Stein, Roger Allam as Robert Maxwell, Anthony Boyle as Kevin Maxwell, Togo Igawa as Hiroshi Yamauchi, Ken Yamamura as Minoru Arakawa, Ben Miles as Howard Lincoln, Matthew Marsh as Mikhail Gorbachev, with Fast & Furious alum Ricky Yune as Larry.
In the director’s chair, you’ll find Jon S. Baird of Filth, Channel 4’s Babylon, and Stan & Ollie fame, who has been working off a screenplay written by Noah Pink (Genius). Gillian Berrie, Len Blavatnik, Gregor Cameron, and Kingsman franchise creator Matthew Vaughn have produced.
Apple TV+’s Tetris movie starring Taron Egerton is scheduled to premiere next month at SXSW Film Festival before hitting the platform on March 31st, 2023 – check out the trailer above.
