Threshold Global Studios, a banner formed by Mortal Kombat producer Larry Kasanoff and Chinese media entrepreneur Bruno Wu, has announced that production for Tetris The Movie will begin in 2017.
“It’s not at all what you think,” said Kassanoff to Deadline Hollywood, “It will be a cool surprise.”
What exactly is there to think about a Tetris-themed movie to begin with? The 32-year-old videogame is perhaps only second in simplicity to Pong. There is a reason it’s been downloaded more than 500 million times: anyone can figure it out.
The best part, though, is that it’s just the first in a trilogy, according to Wu.
Talks of a Tetris movie first surfaced in 2014, before Wu was involved and Kasanoff told The Wall Street Journal: “This isn’t a movie with a bunch of lines running around the page. We’re not giving feet to the geometric shapes.”
Around the same time, the Tetris Company released a statement saying, “In this new universe, as you’ll soon find out, there’s much more to Tetris than simply clearing lines.” Henk Rogers, the game’s founder, once stated the essence of the game resonates with the human desire to create order out of chaos.
In that case, the supposed question is: where will Tetris The Movie find its chaos? A detrimental viral illness? Uncontrollable volcanic explosions? Blocks falling from the sky that must be organized into consecutive lines?
It’s being billed as a live-action sci-fi thriller and will film in China with an all-Chinese cast. It’s set for a release in China as well, and producers are hoping to market it worldwide. The budget is $80 million.
The Tetris movie news comes right in the midst of The Angry Birds Movie premiere, which hits theaters this week. Nintendo has also announced that the company will be developing their own movies based on some of their popular games. However, these games have characters, with personalities.
Tetris may be the most popular videogame of all time, but can it compete with the likes of an Angry Birds movie, or better yet—a Mario Kart movie?