Because "there’s much more to Tetris than simply clearing lines."

October 6, 2014 10:38 AM

Coming soon to a theater near you, it's Tetris! The Movie.
posted by hoodrich (59 comments total)

It can't possibly be any better than "Minesweeper: The Movie".
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:43 AM on October 6, 2014 [8 favorites]

the script is taking forever because whenever they complete four lines it all disappears

thank you thank you I'm here all week try the veal ladies and gentlemen it's delicious
posted by mightygodking at 10:45 AM on October 6, 2014 [106 favorites]

Even the parts of my past that I didn't know could be ruined are going to be ruined.
posted by hippybear at 10:45 AM on October 6, 2014 [16 favorites]

Vending Machine Goop: The Movie
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:47 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Pfft, it'll probably just be a big-budget version of Mega 64's DIY classic.

And I enjoy how the URL is "tetris-movie?" as if responding (or leading) to the title on the page: "Tetris! the Movie."
posted by filthy light thief at 10:50 AM on October 6, 2014

And because it seems to have escaped MetaFilter, here's the Pixels short by Patrick Jean, mentioned in the New Yorker article.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:54 AM on October 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

"Brands are the new stars of Hollywoo--"

*hurk*

*hurk*

*BARF*
posted by brundlefly at 10:55 AM on October 6, 2014 [13 favorites]

Edit to prior comment: Pixels, previously

... and the Pixels major motion picture IMDb page.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:55 AM on October 6, 2014

There's also The Ecstasy of Order, which is a surprisingly harrowing documentary about the lives of top Tetris players.
posted by griphus at 10:57 AM on October 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

> "Brands are the new stars of Hollywood"

This has been tried before. Foodfight, anybody?

/JHarris emerges out of the fog.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:00 AM on October 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

What
posted by Melismata at 11:01 AM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I know they're not well loved in these parts but Penny Arcade did call it eleven years ago.
posted by graymouser at 11:02 AM on October 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

The funniest thing about this, as it was about predecessors like Battleship, is the logical pretzel it imposes on people like Crouch in order to tell a story about the romantic way the movie business ordinarily worked before the sad fall into brandertainment. Witness:

The same idea is true for “The Lego Movie”; for “Wreck-It Ralph,” from 2012, which featured fictional video-game characters alongside real-life stars like Sonic the Hedgehog [...] All of these films have been praised for their clever story lines and their sometimes surprisingly deep characters; they are good movies, even if their provenance is based on calculated corporate motives.

It's funny and kind of telling to see the implication that Sonic is now a "real-world" non-"fictional" character, first of all; but more importantly, might Mr. Crouch then name a Hollywood movie whose goodness or badness wasn't based on "calculated corporate motives"? As if it were just now that the big bad corporations were first discovering the movies? The whole thing is a really excellent litmus test for delusional conceptions of the culture industry.

None of this, of course, is to say that "brands are the new stars of Hollywood" is necessarily either a meaningless proposition or a terribly cheerful one; just that, in order to think seriously about what this version of corporate culture means, you have to be less silly about what Hollywood already was before.
posted by RogerB at 11:02 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I expect it'll be a moving social drama about how we all need that one odd-shaped piece to make us feel whole.
posted by Flashman at 11:02 AM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

"... Staring Adam Sandler."

Baaaaarf.

So there's a Ouiji Board movie coming out but at least that has some drama built in cause you know, ghosts. I was reading Will Storr Vs. The Supernatural and always surprised by the number of people who consider Ouiji Boards, not just the concept of divination but the actual specific product, to be serious dangerous tomes of arcane power.

Like I'm pretty sure the gateway to the undiscovered country isn't made by Mattel, you know?
posted by The Whelk at 11:04 AM on October 6, 2014 [16 favorites]

Or a madcap comedy about a scrappy band of outcasts who start a moving company using Vince Vaughn's Windstar.
posted by Flashman at 11:04 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Like I'm pretty sure the gateway to the undiscovered country isn't made by Mattel, you know?

I'm pretty sure they would make it if they could do it cheaply, with plastic, and turn a tidy profit.
posted by marienbad at 11:07 AM on October 6, 2014

This has been tried before. Foodfight, anybody?

Same director.
posted by brundlefly at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Thinking too much about a fairly fluffy piece on a movie that may not actually get made:

1. Ian Crouch, for The New Yorker, actually put some good pieces together: Threshold Entertainment Group produced not only the Mortal Kombat movies that did well, but also Foodfight, which was a miserable wreck, only fit to mock, forever. The Wall Street Journal piece only mentioned MK.
2. "Can’t we think of anything new? Why must every character be required to have a market share?" Ian Crouch, we can, but it's easier to jump on some bandwagon that already has a significant following than to make a new wagon and hope someone jumps on board. This is not a new observation.
3. The New Yorker piece goes half-way into linking references, connecting five possible ways to make Candy Crush in to a movie, but failing to link to the Pixels short, then going on to link to the Wired article on “Tetris effect” but overlook the Perry Bible Fellowship comic.

posted by filthy light thief at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2014

We had to have something karmically balance out the Twin Peaks revival.
posted by furnace.heart at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

Like I'm pretty sure the gateway to the undiscovered country isn't made by Mattel, you know?

Well D&D is now made by Hasbro...
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:10 AM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

The Whelk: Like I'm pretty sure the gateway to the undiscovered country isn't made by Mattel, you know?

You poor, deluded soul. Mattel is simply the conduit for these otherworldly tools. Like Pope Guilty mentioned, Mattel is simply the current owner and producer of this dark, occult tool (Google books preview).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:13 AM on October 6, 2014

I'd go to a feature based on the video game Qix ... if it was made by the guys that did Koyaanisqatsi and had a score by Philip Glass.
posted by sammyo at 11:13 AM on October 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Yuri felt the cold steel against his temple as the final encryption gateway screen loaded. Two other thugs held a knife to Olga's neck while Chernyev sneered, "So you are world's greatest hacker, huh? You have to get vault open in 30 seconds or else..."

The screen flashed and displayed a "U"-shaped pit and a red, "L"-shaped block appeared at the top and began to fall. A trickle of sweat beaded in a parallel position on his forehead as the timer began to countdown impassively.

Yuri muttered, "shit."
posted by Renoroc at 11:16 AM on October 6, 2014

I feel that this has a a lot a lot of potential. Have you never seen this amazing history of the Soviet union set to the teris theme?
posted by Braeburn at 11:24 AM on October 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Can we still blame cocaine ("it's a hell of a drug") or is there something new most of Hollywood is taking that makes a movie like this seem like a good idea?
posted by tommasz at 11:26 AM on October 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

is there something new most of Hollywood is taking

Punters' money.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:30 AM on October 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

I agree with the article . . . a movie on the real history of the Tetris game would make for a fascinating watch.

A "very big, epic sci-fi movie" on the other hand?

Meh.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:42 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have some casting suggestions:

- The Affleck brothers (Ben and Casey) as J and L
- The Elliott sisters (Abby and Bridey) as S and Z
- Rose Byrne as T
- Chris Pratt as I
- Richard Ayoade as O

The movie is a quirky comedy about how people should fit together but don't, even (and perhaps especially) when they're related.
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:58 AM on October 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

Can we still blame cocaine ("it's a hell of a drug") or is there something new most of Hollywood is taking that makes a movie like this seem like a good idea?

DMT is the only explanation.
posted by empath at 12:08 PM on October 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Scientist: So, according to our calculations, there are only 5 tetronimos, up to reflection and rotation. This should make the clearing out process fairly simple, using a simple algorithm I've come up with, illustrated here.

Protagonist (Shouting from the audience): NO, NO YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG.

Scientist (disturbed by the interruption): In just a few days, the entire extra-dimensional incursion should be completely...

Protagonist (being dragged out): THEY ONLY ROTATE IN ONE DIMENSION!! THERE ARE NO REFLECTIONS!! THE LEFT STAIRCASE-Y THING IS DIFFERENT FROM THE RIGHT STAIRCASE-Y THING.

Scientist (extreme close up): MY GOD. WE'RE ALL DOOMED.
posted by empath at 12:14 PM on October 6, 2014 [29 favorites]

brundlefly: "This has been tried before. Foodfight, anybody?

Same director."

And the voice of Cheasel T. Weasel.

Seriously, how does his every meeting not end with, "You directed Food Fight. Get the hell out of my office."
posted by RobotHero at 12:22 PM on October 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

Anyone who describes Sonic the hedgehog as a "real-life star" is not worth listening to, at all, ever. There are so many apparently stupid people quoted saying such profoundly stupid things in that article that I feel safe in writing off all of the in-the-works films described. (Why yes, I do remember "Battleship." Please don't remind me.)
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:25 PM on October 6, 2014

Renoroc :

Yuri felt the cold steel against his temple as the final encryption gateway screen loaded. Two other thugs held a knife to Olga's neck while Chernyev sneered, "So you are world's greatest hacker, huh? You have to get vault open in 30 seconds or else..."

The screen flashed and displayed a "U"-shaped pit and a red, "L"-shaped block appeared at the top and began to fall. A trickle of sweat beaded in a parallel position on his forehead as the timer began to countdown impassively.

Yuri muttered, "shit."

Oh, I remember that book "Ready, Player One"! Wait...
posted by wenestvedt at 12:29 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

It’s a very big, epic sci-fi movie.

Aliens seed human culture with addictive video games to create a passive, distracted populace primed for invasion.
posted by skymt at 12:29 PM on October 6, 2014

guaranteed to be a block buster
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:52 PM on October 6, 2014 [15 favorites]

Since it at least based on something real, I bet it'll make for a better movie than Atlas Shrugged.

Also, that Pixels thing sounds a lot like this Futurama short.
posted by Poldo at 1:00 PM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm just confused that Uwe Boll isn't involved in this somehow.
posted by brundlefly at 1:41 PM on October 6, 2014

And STILL no Halo movie. IT WAS A JOKE, HOLLYWOOD.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:52 PM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, the Angry Birds Movie has gone into production and announced its voice cast:

Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses, We're the Millers) will lead the cast as Red, a bird with a temper problem. Josh Gad, in his first animated role since the global smash hit Frozen, plays speedy Chuck, and Danny McBride (This is the End, Eastbound & Down) portrays the volatile Bomb. Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) has joined the pork side, Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, The Maya Rudolph Show) will play Matilda, and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past) will play the legendary Mighty Eagle.

In the supporting roles, Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live), Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development), Ike Barinholtz (Neighbors, The Mindy Project), Hannibal Buress (Broad City, Neighbors), Cristela Alonzo (Cristela), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), Grammy nominee and Latin music sensation Romeo Santos, and YouTube stars Smosh (Ian Andrew Hecox and Anthony Padilla), who have over 30 million YouTube subscribers, will bring an extra kick to this angry flock.

Did you catch that? "Peter Dinklage will play the legendary Mighty Eagle." We are beyond ruining our childhoods, we're ruining last week.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:43 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Screw Tetris, what about Columns? It was a fictional Phoenician game. A chimp could make a story out of that.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:47 PM on October 6, 2014

Before: Who greenlighted Coupon: The Movie?

After: I sentence each and every person in the United States to one viewing of Coupon: The Movie, and may God have mercy on your souls.
posted by dialetheia at 5:19 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

oops, that second link is redundant, the first one has the whole sketch
posted by dialetheia at 5:26 PM on October 6, 2014

For one term in my undergrad I played tetris so much it started to invade my dreams... tetris pieces would be falling into the dreamscape. Then one night I went to a movie, and throughout, I kept seeing tetris pieces falling into the movie, and tried to fit them on the characters heads.

That is when i quite tetris... now there is a tetris movie, and it is bringing it all back up. *sob*
posted by chapps at 5:50 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

What.
posted by ageispolis at 6:16 PM on October 6, 2014

Imagine the movie soundtrack!

"along with its visual power, Tetris harnessed the compelling effect of repetitive sound: the beeps of the moving tetriminos, the clacking sound when a piece landed in place, the beam-up sound made by reaching a new level, and the strange, R2-D2 noises of a “tetris,” clearing four lines at once. Behind all these was the main theme song, one of three options, playing on a loop and getting faster as the game moved up each level: “Korobeiniki,” which, thanks to Tetris, is surely the most famous nineteenth-century Russian folk song of all time. "
posted by chapps at 6:34 PM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

The CEO of the production company produced and directed Foodfight. It's starring Adam Sandler.

This cannot possibly go well.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:53 PM on October 6, 2014

chapps, you are not alone.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:09 PM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

There is a trailer for Tetris the Movie, which as usual gives away the whole plot:
posted by memebake at 11:46 PM on October 6, 2014

If this results in a cool remix/cover of the theme tune by, like, Trent Reznor or Daft Punk or something, I'm all for it.

Speaking of which, this seems like a good thread to post my favourite song version of the history of the Soviet Union, namely: the Complete History Of The Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:51 AM on October 7, 2014

Ah damn I see someone got there already. Oh well, it's great!
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:52 AM on October 7, 2014

Wait. Wait. What?

So this ISN'T a joke? TETRIS: THE MOVIE! is going to be an actual... thing?
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 4:19 AM on October 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

> "Brands are the new stars of Hollywood"
This has been tried before. Foodfight, anybody?

As brundlefly noted, it's the same director. And it's the same production company, Threshold Entertainment! Better lock up the workprints, wouldn't want anyone to swipe their hard drives!
posted by JHarris at 4:26 AM on October 7, 2014

(Which was pointed out before. And was mentioned, upon further reading, in the article. Sigh.)
posted by JHarris at 4:50 AM on October 7, 2014

Kasanoff, in his interview with the Wall Street Journal, also noted that “brands are the new stars of Hollywood.” This earned him special ridicule from online commenters, but Kasanoff told me that he doesn’t consider his statement to be cynical. “Back in the studio days, Humphrey Bogart and Betty Grable were brands,” he said. “They were people with a personality that was managed, and were recognized and could draw audiences. Before them, Mickey Mouse was a brand. And now Transformers is a brand.”

So...they're the new stars, but that's not being cynical, it's always been that way...does he know what the word "new" means?
posted by Bugbread at 4:50 AM on October 7, 2014

From the article:Behind all these was the main theme song, one of three options, playing on a loop and getting faster as the game moved up each level: “Korobeiniki,” which, thanks to Tetris, is surely the most famous nineteenth-century Russian folk song of all time. Hearing the song now has the effect not just of stimulating memory but of reëstablishing an entire frame of mind.

Aaah, the New Yorker. They got the conditions leading to the music speeding up wrong (it only gets faster when you're about to lose), but god damn they're going to put that diaeresis over that e.
posted by JHarris at 4:58 AM on October 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

The CEO of the production company produced and directed Foodfight. It's starring Adam Sandler.

You're conflating two things from the article. Larry Kasanoff, the director of Foodfight, is also making Tetris. The full-length version of the short film Pixels is starring Adam Sandler. Pixels is going to be a Columbia/Happy Madison film directed by Chris Columbus. None of this is good, mind you, but it's not that bad.
posted by graymouser at 7:46 AM on October 7, 2014

We live in a world in which the man responsible for the Cooch Jets got to go on and make another movie.
posted by JHarris at 3:18 AM on October 8, 2014

For those who have yet to savour this director's previous work:
http://www.livestream.com/charliesheendog
Enjoy!
posted by Yowser at 12:12 AM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]