Taron Egerton is set to star in Tetris, a film about the legal battle over the rights to the popular video game, which was created by Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. The Welsh actor, who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for portraying singer-songwriter Elton John in Rocketman, will portray Dutch video game entrepreneur Henk Rogers.
Rogers sued late media mogul Robert Maxwell and his son Kevin to secure the intellectual property rights to Tetris for himself and Pajitnov, who hadn’t made a dime on the game even though it had generated millions of dollars. The game, arguably one of the most addictive of all times, has sold over 425 million copies on mobile devices and Facebook’s Tetris Battle game has been played more than 20 billion times.
Initially, Pajitnov, with the help of superiors at the Computer Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, managed to export the game he created but was unaware of the financial success it would have. Tetris, which was passed along to several international gaming companies, was spotted Rogers, the owner of Bullet Proof Software, in Hungary. He was convinced the game was a perfect fit for Nintendo’s upcoming Game Boy system.
Rogers, who traveled to the Soviet Union to meet with Pajitnov, told him about the game’s success and future potential. After a lengthy legal battle, Rogers and Pajitnov, who moved to the United States in 1991, managed to secure the rights to the game and co-founded The Tetris Company in 1996.
Pajitnov went on to design the puzzles in the Super NES versions of Yoshi’s Cookie and the game Pandora’s Box, which incorporates more traditional jigsaw puzzles. He worked for Microsoft 1996 to 2005, creating the Microsoft Entertainment Pack: The Puzzle Collection, MSN Mind Aerobics, and MSN Games groups. His enhanced version of Hexic, Hexic HD, was included with every new Xbox 360 Premium package.
Tetris will be directed by Stan & Ollie filmmaker Jon S. Baird and produced by Leonard Blavatnik and Matthew Vaughn, among others. It is expected to start shooting in September with numerous coronavirus safety protocols in place.
Source: List
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