The True Story Behind Apple TV+'s 'Tetris' Movie (2024)
In the nearly 40 years since Tetris was invented, it has sold more than 520 million copies worldwide and been downloaded over 615 million times on mobile devices alone. The puzzle game—which requires players to fit together geometric shapes composed of four squares to form horizontal lines—skyrocketed to popularity so quickly that in 1994, writer Jeffrey Goldsmith coined the term the Tetris Effect to explain the psychological phenomenon that occurs when people devote so much time and attention to something that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams.
Tetris, a new Apple TV+ movie streaming March 31, explores the true story behind the late 1980s legal battle that led to the classic video game becoming an international phenomenon. The Cold War-era thriller, directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink, follows Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), a Dutch game designer who, after learning about Tetris at a 1988 Las Vegas tradeshow, traveled to Moscow to secure the game’s licensing rights from behind the Iron Curtain.
It was in Moscow that Rogers met Alexey Pajitnov (played by Nikita Efremov), a software engineer at the Soviet Academy of Sciences who created the original Tetris on a rudimentary Electronika 60 computer. Despite the challenges associated with obtaining the rights to products developed in Russia from the Soviet Union’s communist government, Rogers and Pajitnov worked together to bring Tetris to the global masses and, along the way, formed a partnership that has stood the test of time.
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How did Henk Rogers acquire the rights to Tetris?
Like in the movie, after Tetris was ported to the IBM PC in 1985 and began to spread throughout the Soviet Union, Hungarian businessman Robert Stein (played by Toby Jones) made an attempt to secure the computer rights to the game for his company, Andromeda Software. Miscommunication over the Soviet licensing process led Stein to prematurely sell the PC version of Tetris to Spectrum HoloByte, the American arm of British video game publisher Mirrorsoft, and the Tetris computer game was released to instant acclaim despite Stein not having a deal with the Russians.
In the spring of 1988, Stein finally signed an agreement with Elektronorgtechnica (Elorg), the state-owned agency with a monopoly on Russia’s import and export of software, for the computer rights to Tetris (with “computer” interpreted by Stein to mean both PC and home video game-console). However, the contract expressly forbid Stein from licensing the rights to the arcade and handheld versions of the game, as well as any other mediums “which we did not dream about yet.”
Meanwhile, Rogers was busy obtaining distribution rights from Spectrum Holobyte for Tetris computer and console games in Japan. Rogers went on to land a deal with Nintendo via his company Bullet-Proof Software, and Tetris for the Nintendo Famicon console was released in late 1988. With Nintendo’s groundbreaking Game Boy in the works, Rogers then set out for Moscow in hopes of acquiring the handheld rights for Tetris.
Rogers traveled to the Soviet Union on a tourist visa rather than a business visa, a decision that complicated his efforts to meet with anyone involved with Tetris in an official capacity. “I am about to walk in the door and my interpreter says, ‘You can’t go in there,'” Rogers told KCRW. “And I said, ‘What do you mean, I can’t go in there?’ ‘You’re on a tourist visa. You can’t go in. You’re not allowed to speak to anyone.’ And I said, ‘Well, I didn’t come all this way to stand in front of the door and go back to Tokyo to get a visa. I’m going in.'”
Rogers’ arrival in Moscow with the Nintendo Famicon version of Tetris led to the revelation that Stein had been trading rights he did not own. A tense three-way battle over the rights to the game ensued between Rogers, Stein, and Mirrorsoft owner Robert Maxwell (played by Richard Allam) and his son Kevin Maxwell (Anthony Boyle). After a series of complicated negotiations made all the more fraught by Soviet-era tensions, Elorg ultimately granted the rights for Tetris console and handheld games to Rogers for distribution by Nintendo.
Rogers also cemented a friendship with Pajitnov during his time in Moscow and eventually helped him to profit from the game he had invented. Following Tetris‘s world premiere at South by Southwest earlier this month, both Rogers and Pajitnov said during a post-screening panel discussion that the movie accurately portrayed their lives during that time period.
“They captured what happened to me over a year-and-a-half in two hours,” Rogers said, with Pajitnov adding, “That was emotionally, intellectually and spiritually a very truthful movie.”
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.
Based on the true story of American video game salesman Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) and his discovery of Tetris in 1988. When he sets out to bring the game to the world, he enters a dangerous web of lies and corruption behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1996, Pajitnov founded The Tetris Company alongside Dutch video game designer Henk Rogers. Despite the game's high popularity, Pajitnov did not receive royalties from Tetris prior to this time, with the Soviet government being the only Russians who had made money from it.
Rogers' net worth is estimated at $22 million. He made the bulk of his wealth from the distribution of Tetris, which has sold more than 520 million copies worldwide. The game developer reportedly earns a salary of $1.5 million annually.
Maxwell pressured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to cancel the contract between Elorg and Nintendo concerning the rights to the game Tetris, as he believed that his software company Mirrorsoft already owned the rights.
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." Some events in the movie were true. For instance, Rogers notes that he convinced Nintendo to bundle Tetris with the Game Boy at launch in place of Super Mario Land.
Ultimately, Vladimir Pokhilko's murder-suicide case is thin on any concrete evidence regarding the true circ*mstances of his and his family's deaths. This may be why Apple TV+ and the Tetris video game movie creators may have felt it best to steer clear of adding him to the film.
The two remain close friends, meeting up and traveling together through Europe, even though Pajitnov lives in Seattle and Rogers lives in New York City. "It's been a lasting friendship," says Rogers. "Whenever we're in the same jurisdiction, we meet up for a bottle of wine. There's no business talk, just friend talk."
In 2002, Pajitnov and Rogers founded Tetris Holding after the purchase of the game's remaining rights from Elorg, now a private entity following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Tetris Company now owns all rights to the Tetris brand, and it is mainly responsible for removing unlicensed clones from the market.
Since his original creation of the Tetris game, Alexey has also helped produce several sequels to the game, including Tetris 2 and Super Tetris. Alexey relocated to the U.S. in 1991 with the help of Henk Rogers, and is now a resident of Washington State.
He currently lives between his off-grid ranch in Hawaii and New York City and continues to be an active entrepreneur pursuing his passion for making a positive impact on the world.
During his meeting with ELORG's management, he managed to convince them about Tetris' prospects in the global market, resulting in a successful deal. The deal with Elorg granted Rogers international rights to Tetris for home gaming systems.
The Tetris Company was established in 1996 by Pajitnov and Rogers to manage the worldwide licensing of the property. The visual expression in official Tetris games is covered by copyrights that are owned by Tetris Holding, LLC, the company into which Pajitnov placed his Tetris rights.
It was in the summer of 1984 that Alexey Pajitnov, a young software engineer at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, had a brainwave. While dreaming up puzzle games to test the capabilities of the Soviet Electronika 60 computer, he remembered a childhood pastime involving pentominoes.
Nope, Pajitnov didn't initially make money off Tetris because he created it while working for the Soviet government. Pajitnov made money from Tetris eventually, but it took some time - he didn't get royalties until the mid-90s. Initially, the Soviet government owned the rights, so Pajitnov didn't see much cash.
Spoiler alert: Rogers succeeds, Tetris becomes one of the most popular games in history and Pajitnov moves to the U.S. He now lives in Clyde Hill, where fans still send him cartridges to sign. “Tetris” is faithful to the spirit of the game and the story of how it got to the masses, Pajitnov said.
In January 2020, EA announced that they would retire their mobile version of the game on April 21, 2020, and the game became unplayable after this date, even if the full version was purchased. The Tetris Company instead licensed the rights to N3TWORK to create a new mobile version.
The game's fast-paced nature and demand for spatial reasoning can contribute to a sharper, more agile mind. Studies have revealed that engaging with Tetris can increase gray matter in the brain, potentially leading to better cognitive function and enhanced problem-solving skills.
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