Author says Tetris movie copied his book
eurogamer.netThe author of a book telling the story of Tetris' creation has launched a lawsuit against the makers of this year's Tetris movie.
Dan Ackerman, a writer and video game journalist, published The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotised the World back in 2016. In it, he describes the Cold War-era battle to get Tetris made.
This year's Tetris film, starring Taron Egerton, retells the same story — which is of course based closely on real-life events. Still, Ackerman has now launched legal proceedings over the movie being «similar in almost all material aspects».
Ackerman says he sent The Tetris Company, which he is now suing, a proof copy of his book before its launch (as reported by The Guardian). The reception to his book, he says, was frosty — as he alleges he was told he could not license the work for adaptation into a film via a «strongly-worded cease-and-desist letter».
It's further claimed that The Tetris Company scared away interested film producers, before launching its own adaptation of the Tetris story via the production arm of Apple, which Ackerman has also included in the lawsuit.
Ackerman is seeking at least $4.8m in damages — six percent of the Tetris movie's $80m production budget.
The Tetris Company and Apple are yet to comment.
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