Upcoming Tetris film has such a “big story” it’s now confirmed to be a trilogy

Vaughn Highfield June 28, 2016

Tetris may have been created in the mid-1980s, but it wasn’t until Nintendo brought it to the Game Boy that the Russian-made puzzler sparked a cultural revolution upon its release. Now, after the world has forgotten the monstrosity that was Dr Spin’s “Tetris” dance track, it appears that we just can’t get enough Tetris – the upcoming Tetris film is now being turned into a full-blown trilogy instead of just one standalone movie.

It’s easy to think that its producer Larry Kasanoff and production company Threshold Global Studios just want to milk the franchise for all its worth, but apparently there’s just too much to contain in one film. “The story we conceived is so big,” explains Kasanoff when speaking to Empire. “This isn’t us splitting the last one of our eight movies in two to wring blood out of the stone. It’s just a big story.”

Yes, you read that correctly, it’s “just a big story”. So big, in fact, it has to be split across three films. Three films loosely based upon sorting falling blocks while listening to an 8-bit version of Korobeiniki. Perhaps Kasanoff spent too long playing Tetris on his phone when writing the screenplay.

While the story of how Tetris came about is actually rather fascinating – there’s a great BBC documentary about its creation – Kasanoff’s film isn’t even remotely about that. Instead, it’s a science-fiction movie. Don’t worry, though, Kasanoff promises there won’t be “blocks with feet running around… but it’s great that people think so. It sets the bar rather low!”

“We want the story to be a surprise, but it’s a big science-fiction movie. I came up with the idea as I was thinking about Tetris and the theme of creating order out of chaos.”

Kasanoff’s past works include Mortal Kombat, True Lies, various LEGO productions and 1999’s woeful sci-fi adaptation of Beowulf. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that this Tetris trilogy is going to be something of a disappointment.

Kasanoff ended his interview by clarifying that “no-one has come remotely close to figuring out what we’re doing”. In all honestly, I’m really not surprised.