Tetris To Be Made Into a Live Action Film 137
SchrodingerZ writes: Threshold Entertainment has announced that it will be producing a live action film based on the Russian stacking game Tetris. Designed in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris has sold over 35 million copies worldwide. Threshold CEO Larry Kasanoff promises "a very big, epic sci-fi movie," explaining, "this isn't a movie with a bunch of lines running around the page. We're not giving feet to the geometric shapes." Kasanoff is known for his work with the video game films Mortal Kombat, and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, collectively grossing $105 million in revenue. The studio is planning "a story behind Tetris which makes it a much more imaginative thing," though no directors nor cast have been connected to the film. Threshold Entertainment teased the idea, saying "What you [will] see in Tetris is the teeny tip of an iceberg that has intergalactic significance."
April Fools? (Score:5, Funny)
Are we sure it's October 1st and not April 1st?
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In the U.S. maybe, but in Russia, on the other side of the world, it is April 1st.
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Right. It's April 1st Old Style*.
They recoilled away from Soviet Communism so hard they overshot back into Tsarist Imperial Russia.
*No, not really. Don't be whoosed by a feeble calendar joke. The bit about 21st Century Tsarist Russia, though, that was serious.
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Uhhh, in Soviet Russia October fools you?
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I was wondering the same thing. Someone got their calendar seriously wrong.
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I think it's going to be more challenging for writers to create a scenario than even Battleship!
Is the hero going to use a laser beam, telepathy, or Jeff Goldbloom's laptop to steer geometric alien enemies into a well packed space in order to disable their ships? Or do they have a weakness to water? Or is our super weapon of the future large geometric shapes and we have to contract a super bright Chinese exchange student to quickly configure them in order to save the world, while John Glenn walks slowly in
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That was my initial reaction but then Tetris' total lack of plot and cannon also gives the writers near total freedom.
I mean hell you could make a movie about a struggling deliver service improving their efficiency through better packing efficiency and call it Tetris.
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And the parodies of the film will be called ... UPS.
The scene will involve a UPS driver putting boxes in the truck in a neat manner all to the tune of the Russian classic "The Peddlers" (aka "ÐsоÑобÐÐнÐÐÐ")
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I once received something delivered by UPS and I think the scene prior to the delivery looked more like the beginning of Ace Ventura.
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*canon
Although technically Tetris doesn't have cannons, either.
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That was my initial reaction but then Tetris' total lack of plot
I'm tipping Michael Bay to direct.
I suspect... (Score:2)
I suspect that they've only bought the rights to the name, and that they did it because they thought it would be a good title for a spy film set in the final days of the Soviet Union, and that they figure that with the current craziness emanating from Russia the public will be interested in it.
If so, do not expect it to be filmed in Russia, but in one of the other former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. Probably not Ukraine, though.
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That's not the plot, that's the theme. The plot will be "good guys kill bad guys". The only real question is whether "Tetris" will turn up as a heroic or villainous doomsday weapon.
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i was ready to respond but my head hit the brakes and did a full reverse when it read Goldbloom Seriously? I think we deserve our /. editors
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Are we sure it's October 1st and not April 1st?
When I first saw this on the BBC news site [bbc.co.uk] my first thought was that this was beyond parody.
Charlie Brooker apparently stopped doing TV Go Home [tvgohome.com] (a bizarre send-up of British TV listings) when reality TV ideas started coming up with ideas that were becoming as strange as his joke versions (e.g. "Touch the Truck in which contestants must continually touch a truck for 24 hours in order to win the truck as a prize").
This is the movie version of that- it already sounds like something that would have belonged
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> Enough of that. Here's a little musical relief. [youtube.com]
I see your Doctor Spin and raise you Pig With The Face Of A Boy. [youtube.com]
If the movie is half as good as the video in my link, I'll go see it.
The Last Blockfighter (Score:5, Funny)
Greetings, Blockfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada.
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Tetris, the last BLOCKBUSTER.
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I'm also old enough to get the reference! Can I get a lone star?
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Only one man would dare to give me the raspberry jam.
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I am also old enough, but don't you mean a Gunstar?
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he's older than you; his memory's waning
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why not?
See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
It is based on tetris, but it is actually pretty good history illustration.
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Why not?
See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
It is based on tetris, but it is actually pretty good history illustration.
Holy hell...
"what's the point of it all/ when you're building a wall/ and in front of your eyes/ it disappears?"
"pointless work for pointless pay/ this is one game I won't play"
I just realized how Tetris is really just an analog for communism... Childhood Ruined.
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That's hilarious! Somehow I don't see it scaling to feature length though.
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Well I think what's most likely happening is, they're taking some random crappy scifi movie and shoe-horning some Tetris concept into it. Why? Because some jackasses will watch it just to see "the Tetris movie". It's the "Snakes on a Plane" brand of marketing. If you can't market your movie as being a good movie, market it as being a funny ironic bizarre movie.
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It's the "Snakes on a Plane" brand of marketing. If you can't market your movie as being a good movie, market it as being a funny ironic bizarre movie.
To be fair, I don't think "Snakes on a Plane" was ever quite that cynically-minded in the first place; remember that, back when it happened, the "self-consciously cheesy B-style-movie" thing wasn't such a cliche, and they apparently changed the title to "Pacific Flight 121" at one point before Samuel L Jackson supposedly made them change it back. (I wonder if "Snakes on a Plane" was only originally intended to be a working title reflecting a high concept [wikipedia.org] movie).
Yes, they did reshoot and alter parts of the
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An even better example is the Super Mario Bros. movie.
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"Fuck the script! We'll worry about that insignificant detail after the FX are in place! We need to focus on the EXPLOSIONS!" -Michael Bay
Minesweeper The Movie! (Score:3)
Minesweeper is an example this can be done, and it has been pretty well executed. See there :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Why not? (Score:2)
The answer, of course, is "money". People will go see this. Or if they don't, it's because they did a bad job of following the formulas. The summer blockbuster formula has worked out pretty well. People like watching stuff blow up, even if they could have predicted what would blow up and what it would look like before they paid $13 for a ticket.
Battleship took in $300,000,000. It cost $200,000,000 to make. That's "why". People recognized the name, and hoped to combine their love of stuff blowing up with the
They already did a Castlevania movie. (Score:2, Funny)
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Legend of Zelda - if done right - might actually make a pretty good movie. Sort of a mini-Lord Of The Rings. You could take the plot of Link To The Past (and perhaps a few other Zelda games), adapt it a bit, and wind up with a very nice movie. If you do it right, you could even get a Zelda Trilogy out of it.
I'd much rather see another Super Mario Brothers movie (actually based off of the video games instead of whatever that 80's film was) than Tetris: The Movie.
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Fallout must come first before the crappy console games.
Could be Good (Score:2)
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Something like Metropolis?
Metropolis was all about the imagery. No matter how good this Tetris movie is or is not, it'll all be about the fifteen minutes before - filling the theatre seats is going to be great fun!
Raiders of the Lost Arcade (Score:3)
That was what came to mind when I saw the headline .. Invaders .. possibly from space!
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Are we sure Uwe Boll isn't available? (Score:3)
He's probably peeing his pants in excitement waiting for the phone call.
i couldn't help it.... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if it'll be a BLOCK-BUSTER ;-)
Re:i couldn't help it.... (Score:5, Funny)
And it will be full of classic one-liners
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I give up. (Score:2)
First Battleship, now this.
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First Battleship, now this.
Hey, what ever happened to that Asteroids movie that they were supposed to be making?
Re:I give up. (Score:5, Funny)
First Battleship, now this.
Hey, what ever happened to that Asteroids movie that they were supposed to be making?
The director didn't lead the target and by the time the movie arrived the public's interest was elsewhere.
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First Battleship, now this.
Hey, what ever happened to that Asteroids movie that they were supposed to be making?
I think they may have hit the hyperspace button... never a good idea.
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Basing it on the game was an enjoyable element, to a point. What ruined it for me is the ridiculous way the aliens sunk the ships: by hurling these bombs that were peg-shaped (per the game) so that they spun end-over-end, yet penetrated the ship at various points in more-or-less correct orientation (also per the game.) For a species that was capable of interstellar travel, that seemed like a spectacular technological fail.
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First Battleship, now this.
And next... Pong!
2008 Reboot of the Franchise (Score:1)
There's no script. (Score:3)
I would imagine that this will be the kind of a movie that will be in the five dollar bin at Walmart's within a month of release. And there will be a lot of them that simply stay in that bin.
Re:There's no script. (Score:5, Funny)
At least they'll be neatly packed.
Re:There's no script. (Score:4, Funny)
At least they'll be neatly packed.
Well not too neatly, or they'll just disappear!
Intergalactic Contest (Score:2)
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Sounds like an episode of SouthPark or Regular show.
This is redundant (Score:5, Informative)
The only Tetris movie that ever needed to be made [youtube.com] has already been made. Any further attempts will necessarily pale in comparison.
Coming soon to a theater near you! (Score:2)
Pong: The future is in your hands.
A cross genre action-scifi-romcom with human drama and real meaning.
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Block by block (Score:2)
Lead Role (Score:5, Funny)
I assume Mr. T will get the lead role?
Book is better (Score:3, Funny)
Eh, it'll never be as good as the book.
FTL! Dwarf Fortress! Dead or Alive! (Score:2)
So many other games that would make better live action films...
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Why? (Score:1)
The Prequel Has Already Been Announced (Score:3)
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Gump (Score:2)
Its bound to be (Score:1, Funny)
Its bound to be . . . a Blockbuster
(apologies - I couldn't resist)
I am the man... (Score:2)
I am the man who arranges the blocks that descend upon me from up above!
Tetris, the documentary [youtu.be]
Obligatory Penny Arcade (Score:3)
Obligatory Penny Arcade
http://www.penny-arcade.com/co... [penny-arcade.com]
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From Windows 10 to Tetris: The Movie, the satirists just can't keep ahead of the real world!
Bejeweled Blitz coming soon! (Score:2)
Awesome!
This is Tricia Takanawa .... (Score:3)
Hollywood = self-parody (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure I've heard this story before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
A couple times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Marvel could do it, they can't fail (Score:2)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/6924... [hulu.com]
The Monolith from 2001 has a major part (Score:2)
But where are the curves? Where are the non-right-angles (mustn't forget the pyramids)? Perhaps it's all a question of which True Shapes visited our world, like Babylon 5's explanation of all our religions as a proxy war between the law-and-order Vorlons and the what-do-you-want Shadows. (As opposed to Stargate's "chariots of the gods" theme of a proxy war betw
more proof we've lost the war on drugs (Score:2)
Victimless crime, you say?
Have your people call mine (Score:2)
I have a treatment of Chutes and Ladders - The Movie I'm shopping around. If you're interested, call me. We'll do lunch.
Spolier alert (Score:2)
It's a remake of the Last Star Fighter.
Not as compelling as Minesweeper (Score:2)
They'll never top such an epic story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
TV Go Home (Score:2)
This was already shown back on Charlie Brooker's TV Go Home over a decade ago. No link sadly as it's flagged as "obscene" by the company filter...
don't forget the Minesweeper movie (Score:2)
Minesweeper - The Movie: http://youtu.be/LHY8NKj3RKs [youtu.be]
Epic! ;-)
Maybe a movie about the creation of tetris itself? (Score:2)
Like a fluffed up, full of drama and conspiracy surrounding Mr.Pajitnov?
Wrong game (Score:2)
Arkanoid had an actual backstory, for $DIETY's sake. That puts it about 1,000,000 miles ahead of Tetris.
Arkanoid's plot for reference (Score:2)
Could actually be good (Score:3)
I can easily see them making an Indiana Jones-type sci-fi film where there is one small scene involving an alien puzzle that sort-of resembles a Tetris puzzle. The protagonist lines up some block line in Tetris, a door opens and the movie continues. 30 seconds of reference to the game while otherwise being an independent sci-fi film.
Also, that's why I had high hopes for Battleship. It had a competent director and all he had to do was use a decent Navy/boat script - that's all. They weren't confined to any sort of plot at all. Too bad they messed it up (and, to be fair, I have to admit that the climactic scene with the anchor/flipping the boat around was pretty neat).
Tetris: The Movie (Game Parody Song) (Score:2)
Where's the Tepples post about infinite spin? (Score:2)
Waits for the inevitable Tepples post asking if the movie will have infinite spin, and asking what would be the "best practices" for someone who wanted to be an adviser on the game based aspects.
LINE PIECE! (Score:2)
Is this Secret Collect. Adventures all over again? (Score:2)
http://www.homestarrunner.com/... [homestarrunner.com]
Two things. (Score:2)
INT: GROCERY STORE PRODUCE AISLE
BILLY BATS places the last orange on the stack with deft precision. He smiles as he views yet another body-centered-cubic masterpiece.
BRILLIANT FLASHES OF LIGHT, and the King of the Megalocyclodroids enters through a worm hole and says.
KING OF THE MEGALOCYCLODROIDS
Billy Bats, WE NEED YOU!
SCENE.
Second point: Please, please tell me that Billy Bats is played by none other than DOLPH LUNDGREN!
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Icebergs... IN SPACE!
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Andy Warhol already went down the road in the 60s with films such as the 8 hour long Empire, which consisted of a single shot of the Empire State Building. Neat, eh?
I see Warhol also threw together a flick with the alarming title Tub Girls. Although some of his films depicted graphic sexual acts this one apparently doesn't go further than showing one of his Superstars in the nude chatting with friends.