Rubik's Cube Movie - What We Know So Far

You're familiar with the Rubik's Cube, yes? The colorful square puzzle toy where you have to make the colors solid on each side of the cube? It was most popular in the 1980s, but it's still among the best-selling toys of all time. Hundreds of millions of units sold worldwide. You like the Rubik's Cube, right? You have positive nostalgic associations with it. You definitely say "I know what that is" when you see it, and that's more than half the battle.

Here's the big question, though: Do you like it enough to watch a movie based on it? And also watch a Rubik's Cube game show? Production companies Hyde Park Entertainment and Endeavor Content are hoping you do. Deadline reports that they're trying to do for the humble Rubik's Cube what Michael Bay did for Transformers and create a media franchise based on an '80s toy that drives up sales of the product and introduces it to a new generation.

The project is in early stages of development, so we don't know anything yet about what the story will be, when it will come out, or who will be in it. But the press release published by Deadline gives a hint about what it could be about. Here's how the producers might twist this project to completion.

The Rubik's Cube, on its six colorful faces, doesn't have any obvious narrative possibilities. It doesn't have characters, like Legos or the aforementioned Transformers. Nor does it have lore associated with it that could create a hook for the audience, like what happened with the Ouija board in the horror movies Ouija and Mike Flanagan's improbably great prequel Ouija: Origin of Evil. So the story will probably have to revolve around the Rubik's Cube culture — namely, "speedcubers," who solve Rubik's Cubes as quickly as possible. The world record is held by Yusheng Du of China, who solved the puzzle in 3.47 seconds in 2018, according to The New York Times.

The press release quoted in the Deadline story seems to hint at this possible story avenue by mentioning the Rubik's Cube World Championship Finals, which is where the world's greatest speedcubers come together to find out who has the quickest hands and most accurate solving algorithm. The speedcubing subculture was covered in last year's documentary The Speed Cubers, which is available on Netflix. The documentary, as well as the robust community of cubers online, who gather on YouTube and Reddit to share their enthusiasm for puzzle games, show that there are a lot of people who are passionate about Rubik's Cubes and would probably show up to watch the movie. And the story genre of "thing that seems frivolous but requires a lot of skill and dedication and is actually really interesting and has compelling characters" is always captivating.

Not a whole lot, to be honest. It will be produced by Ashok Amritraj and executive produced by Priya Amritraj and Addison Mehr for Hyde Park Entertainment. The rest of Hyde Park's diverse film slate doesn't give much of an indication of what to expect; other projects in the works include a remake of the romantic comedy 10 and a Bourne-influenced action movie with Gerard Butler called Remote Control.

"I've had a personal and nostalgic connection to the Rubik's Cube from my early days in India," Ashok Amritraj said. "I am thrilled to partner with Endeavor Content and Rubik's/Smiley and look forward to creating a wonderful and complex Rubik's universe."

Amritraj is developing a Rubik's Cube game show in tandem with the movie. He will produce that alongside Glassman Media, a division of Endeavor Content that also produces the NBC game show The Wall.

The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian architect and sculptor Ernö Rubik. It was the biggest toy fad in the world between 1980 and 1982. America's best-selling book of 1981 was James G. Nourse's The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube, which sold over 6 million copies, according to UPI. Rubik himself just published a memoir, Cubed, in late 2020.