Tetris the Movie, to begin shooting in China soon, is part one of a purported sci-fi trilogy

Film producers have seen the value of making movies based on existing brands, be they comic books or video games - although filming Tetris seems such a stretch it has been an industry in-joke. Not any more

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Threshold Global Studios, a joint venture between Chinese entertainment investor Bruno Wu's Seven Star Works and producer Larry Kasanoff's California-based Threshold Entertainment Group plan to make a science-fiction trilogy based on the the popular 1980s video game Tetris. AP

Published: 10:43am, 23 May 2016Updated: 10:45am, 23 May 2016

Know how everyone always said Hollywood should make a movie based on Tetris, the 1984 video game in which players fit differently shaped blocks into one another? Oh, wait – no one said that, but we’re getting one anyway, thanks to Larry Kasanoff and Bruno Wu.

The idea of such a film, much less a trilogy of them, seems so patently absurd that a group of filmmakers created a joke trailer for the movie long before the actual idea was even announced. Again, let us note, this is a fake trailer:

But the real thing might be coming to the silver screen in the next few years. At the Cannes film festival, Kasanoff, who previously produced a string of films based on the Mortal Kombat video game series, and Wu, CEO of China’s Sun Seven Stars Media Group, announced their new company Threshold Global Studios, Deadline reported. They go on to say that the company is making Tetris the Movie, which will be a sci-fi thriller. The film’s current budget is US$80 million and shooting is set to begin in China in 2017, according to USA Today.

For any Tetris fans worried that one might not contain the real estate to fully flesh out the backstories of those coloured blocks, fear not. Kasanoff and Wu see it as the first instalment of a trilogy.

“It’s just a phenomenal idea for this brand,” Kasanoff told Mashable. “That’s what motivated this whole thing. And you’ve gotta ask yourself why Tetris has been so successful for so many years; we’ve thought of a really great science fiction movie out of it. I get pitched video game projects all the time, and we’re very picky about that stuff.”

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