Announced last year, an official Tetris movie is moving ahead. The film, based on the ubiquitous puzzle game, will be an $80 million Chinese-U.S. production under a new company created by Bruno Wu and Larry Kasanoff called Threshold Global Studios. Some may remember Kasanoff as the producer of the surprisingly good 1995 Mortal Kombat movie. Others may also remember him as the director of Food Fight!, which was, by all imaginable measures, an abomination.
The film is billed to be a sci-fi thriller with an ensemble Chinese cast. Principal photography will begin in 2017 in China and surrounding areas. The movie, the first of a proposed trilogy, is “not at all what you think; it will be a cool surprise,” according to Kasanoff.
This comes in a year of big video game movies, including Angry Birds, Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed. This production also signals the growing influence of China in the global entertainment realm. We will have to wait a few years to see where the pieces fall– and see where this movie stacks up against the others.