Tetris director Jon S. Baird has been speaking to IGN about the forthcoming Apple TV+ flick, and has compared it to one of his previous films, the Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie.
"Tetris is completely different in pace and tone from my last movie Stan & Ollie, but my movie before that, Filth, was again completely different," Baird tells IGN. "I like challenging myself with new genres and therefore Tetris provided that with a chance to work on a bigger scale, with a wider canvas and more resources. At its heart, it’s a buddy movie and I’ve always been drawn to those, which I suppose is why I also chose Stan & Ollie."
Baird also tells the site that while he was a fan of the game in his younger years, he was unaware of the epic battle to secure the home console rights back in the late '80s. "I’d never heard of Henk or knew anything about the backstory before I read (Noah Pink’s) script. I hope that most people will be similar before coming to the movie as it’s such a remarkable and surprising true story."
He also talks about filming the movie in his native Scotland, which doubles for Soviet-era Moscow. "Glasgow provided some really great matches in terms of Moscow’s Neoclassical architecture - which I believe was actually designed by a Scottish architect. Our great find though was my home city of Aberdeen which doubled incredibly well due to some of its Brutalist structures,” Baird explains to IGN. "Both places were of course assisted by some elaborate set extensions due to the vastness of Moscow compared to those relatively smaller Scottish cities."
Tetris premieres globally on Apple TV+ on March 31st, 2023. It stars Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers and Nikita Yefremov as Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov.