Dan Ackerman claims Tetris film story copied from his 2016 book

Showing all posts tagged: Jon S. Baird

Dan Ackerman claims Tetris film story copied from his 2016 book

14 August 2023

The Tetris Effect, by Dan Ackerman, book cover

Book cover of The Tetris Effect, written by Dan Ackerman.

Dan Ackerman, editor-in-chief of design and technology publication Gizmodo, claims in a recent court filing that Apple TV+, producers of the 2023 film Tetris, directed by Jon S. Baird, copied the storyline from his 2016 book, The Tetris Effect. Ackerman further alleges he sent a pre-publication edition of the book to Maya Rogers, CEO of the Tetris Company, and soon after received a cease and letter warning him not to adapt the story for film or television:

Ackerman accused Rogers of working with screenwriter Noah Pink to develop a screenplay using content taken from his book without his knowledge or consent. Apparently, numerous producers showed interest in adapting his book, but the Tetris Company refused to license its IP for the project. “This was done at the direction and behest of Ms. Rogers so that she and the Tetris Company could pursue their own project and opportunities based on Mr. Ackerman’s book without compensating him,” the lawsuit reads.

I wrote about the film last March, but still haven’t had a chance to see it. According to the film’s IMDb page, the screenplay was written by Noah Pink. No mention, at least that I can see, is made of Ackerman, nor The Tetris Effect, there.

The story of the invention of Tetris, a film by Jon S Baird

18 March 2023

There’s a few tech origin-story films around that the moment. The Playlist is about the founding of music streaming service Spotify, while BlackBerry backgrounds the invention of one of the first smartphones, being, obviously, the BlackBerry.

But here’s the one we’ve been waiting for… Tetris, trailer, the story behind the still popular video game’s creation, directed by Scottish filmmaker Jon S. Baird. Nikita Efremov portrays Alexey Pajitnov, the Soviet-born American computer engineer who devised Tetris in 1984, with Taron Egerton as Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers, who sought a distribution deal for the game.

It’s all high drama, these start-up stories. So much for plodding away quietly in a suburban garage, bringing the next big thing into being.