We all remember the clunky 8-bit graphics of the video games of the 70s and 80s like Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980)  that brought us countless hours of joy. Although Tetris was released over a decade later, it’s global iconic status as THE video game to play on a Game Boy hand held console is unquestionable.

The story of Tetris is now a feature film written by Noah Pink (Genius). The remarkable aspect of Tetris is not so much that it was a spec script without underlying IP, but more its fascinating observation of the Cold War. Noah Pink spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about writing his cracking Cold War thriller about gamers.

We asked Pink what compelled him to write a screenplay about Tetris. “I didn’t come into the story from the video game. I came at it from the characters and the story behind the game,” says Pink.

Being an avid Tetris fan certainly motivated the screenwriter. “Tetris was, for my generation, the game that we all grew up on. And it’s the game that I played, decently, as a kid. When I heard there was a really compelling and interesting high stakes story behind this simple and beautiful video game, I just had to dive in,” he adds.

Noah Pink began his investigation into the backstory of Tetris which was developed by American businessman Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) and Russian inventor Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov).

The screenplay for Tetris was divided into two story silos – developing the game and the evolving relationship between two men on either side of the Iron Curtain. This was the foundation of Pink’s screenplay.

“Before I start writing a script, I think it’s important to know what your “capital S” Story is going to be. What really attracted me to this story was at the core of it were two characters from very different parts of the world with very different upbringings, who on paper, should not have been friends, and should not have found any common ground. But, because of their shared love of gaming, they came together and formed this partnership and this friendship which endures to this day.”

The friendship between Henk and Alexey was the beating heart of the story

Noah Pink deliberately kept his external research of the origins of Tetris to a minimum to maintain the purity of his vision. There was a podcast featuring Henk and Alexey Pink listened to, and that’s about it.

Aside from capturing the spirit of the unlikely friendship, Pink needed to infuse the visual palette of Tetris into his story. “I wanted to make sure that the essence of Tetris and the gamification of the story was shown in a visual medium. I wanted to make sure that we had the levels and the 8-bit game inserts.” These elements appeared in the original draft.

Tonally and stylistically, Noah Pink borrowed heavily from John le Carré who is known for his espionage novels. He subverted the genre by adding the fun of the game.

Getting Someone To Look At The Script

Noah Pink wrote Tetris on spec and he waited for something to happen. Several years earlier, his show Genius about the great minds of history aired on National Geographic. “I was working with Ron Howard, so he was one of the first people to ever read it. His enthusiasm for the script was what propelled it forward,” recalls Pink.

Two years later, Tetris caught the attention of industrialist/ philanthropist Len Blavatnik and producer Gregor Cameron (Kill Your Friends). In 2019, Cameron reached out to Pink to join him for a coffee and a game of Tetris. “I love the script, I wanna make it,” declared Cameron.

“Four months later, I get a call back and he [Cameron] had given it to Matthew Vaughn (Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch),” continues Pink. In 2020, Vaughn came onboard the project.

Noah Pink also spoke to both Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov to gain further insight into their unique friendship. The screenwriter wrote his first draft of Tetris before meeting them since he previously didn’t have any access to them. After meeting them, he noted how different they were from each other. “They’re not the same personality at all, and obviously they come from very different parts of the world. But it’s really their connection that they found over gaming.”

Pink references a scene in the movie where Alexey shows the original version of Tetris. “They have a little moment where they’re bonding as they’re coding back and forth,” says Pink.

Noah Pink

Taron Egerton and Nikita Efremov were compelled by the notion that two grown men were bound by a mutual love of video games. “And remembering as adults that we still need to play.” Both actors tapped into their inner child to inspire their takes on their characters.

“As creative people, we’re all really striving to get in the zone where we want to be both creative and productive and find the confluence of the two,” continues Pink.

Despite their vastly different backgrounds, they were both nerds. “Alexey, because of his upbringing, and because of his family history, was a little more reticent to take risks. That was beaten into him as a child growing up in the Soviet Union.”

“Henk was the complete opposite. Hank showed Alexey that sometimes it’s okay to break the rules. And sometimes that’s how great things happen.”

Henk was so obsessed with the hustle, that he needed Henk to remind him why he was doing what he was doing. “He almost lost his love and his passion for video games in the process. And it wasn’t until he re-met Alexey that he fell in love with games again. Alexey taught him the power of pure creative expression.” Despite their personality differences, they play well off each other.

Heroes And Villains

Every good espionage story needs a ruthless villain. Cold War stories are typically set in an East fights West framework. In Tetris, villains are coming from all sides – the KGB, the Soviet Union, and the whole Maxwell clan. “On the Soviet side, getting the insight from Alexey was crucial to forming these characters. It was Alexey who explained how E-Lorg, which is short for Electron or Technica, which was basically this unit within the Soviet government responsible for digital exports, which were few and far between. When Tetris came about, it got the attention of everybody all the way up.”

“It was Alexey who told me in our conversations that Hank’s translator was working with the KGB. That’s how that made it into the script.” Pink used this as an example of a government official who envisaged to collapse of the Soviet Union and everyone scrambled for a piece. It was a time when government officials would now own previous government entities and become instant billionaires.

Noah Pink has heard comments that Tetris is a very pro-capitalist film. “That surprises me because not the intention. The biggest pro-capitalists are probably the Maxwells. The pro-communists are actually fighting for themselves.” It explores selfishness and greed. Ironically, Alexey is the one guy who has the least to gain from fighting the Soviets.

Whether consciously or not, Tetris alludes to the extremities of market ideology. In Communism, nothing is for sale and owned by the people. In Capitalism, everything is for sale, including people.

(Henk Rogers) Taron Egerton, (Sasha) Sofya Lebedeva & Alexey Pajitnov) Nikita Efremov. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+

Tetris is more than a game in the film. Alexey was inspired by his genius in mathematics, problem solving, and puzzles. His mind also worked in parallel to strategize the cat and mouse game between Team Tetris and the rest of the world. It also informed Pink’s screenplay.

“The way to win in Tetris is you have to set up a situation where you can continually have that space for that high piece to come down until the four lines disappear. The way I try to construct the story is that the levels keep getting faster and faster, higher and higher… And then the pieces start falling faster and faster, and you don’t have enough time to put them all together. These guys had to manouver a lot of L pieces which they weren’t hoping for and fit them into a spot and wait for that high piece to come.”

Tetris is ostensibly a biopic and Pink has to balance entertainment with historical information. “We’re not telling a documentary. We are telling an entertaining story. That being said, we want to be faithful to do the people who are still living obviously and to what actually happened,” declares Pink.

“For me, it’s first and foremost, getting the emotional truth correct. When it comes to fabricating some things or maybe juicing up some stakes. It’s really adding to what’s already there. It’s never a blanket full creation. It’s always a balancing act.” However, many events in the story actually happened and didn’t need to be fictionalized.

The story of Tetris is so dense, it couldn’t all be packed into a film. For instance, the full story of how Alexey found Elorg through his translator was edited out for reasons of time. There was also a huge legal battle between Nintendo and Atari raging at the time which Pink didn’t go into. That can be left for the mini-series.

Noah Pink confesses, “I loved writing the boardroom scenes and when Hank gets to Moscow.” The screenwriter’s biggest challenge was deciding how to begin the movie when there’s so much backstory to sift through.

The cast also added their own interpretations of the characters. Taron Egerton “could eliminate a whole page worth of dialogue with one word or a raised eyebrow. I learned how to do so much more with less.”

Much like Alexey and Henk, Noah Pink is always balancing the creative with the business side of being a screenwriter. “I wrote this in a way to remind myself why I do what I do. I do it because I love the act of creation,” states Pink.

“It’s not just about whatever the outward definitions of what success are. What I learned from this is that the true success is in the connections you make, the friends you make, and the things you make. And that’s it.“