The Cube is a British television game show that aired on ITV from 22 August 2009 to 23 December 2021. It was hosted by Phillip Schofield.

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Quick Facts The Cube, Also known as ...

The Cube
Also known as	The Million Pound Cube (2020)
Created by	Adam Adler
Presented by	Phillip Schofield
Voices of	Colin McFarlane
Theme music composer	Nick Foster Ken Bolam
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	11
No. of episodes	95
Production
Production locations	Fountain Studios (2009–15) Television Centre, London (2020–21)
Running time	60–75 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production companies	Objective Media Group Wildcard Television (2020) Triple Brew Media (2021)
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	22 August 2009 (2009-08-22) – 23 December 2021 (2021-12-23)

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The original series offered contestants the chance to win a top prize of £250,000 by completing challenges from within a 4m × 4m × 4m perspex cube. The challenges involve physical and mental tasks including catching, throwing, estimation, reacting, memorisation, and balancing. Colin McFarlane provides the disembodied voice of The Cube, who explains the rules of the games.^[1]

The show ran from 2009 to 2015, before returning as The Million Pound Cube in 2020, and again under its original title in 2021.^[2][3]

Objective Productions first approached Channel 4 in 2008 with the format. It was made into a non-televised pilot by the channel,^[9] and was hosted by Justin Lee Collins. Channel 4 eventually decided not to commission the show because it would have been too expensive.^[10]

In February 2009, ITV purchased the rights to the show and filming began during April 2009 at Wembley's Fountain Studios. The Cube is one of the first shows to use the game freeze filming technique on a frequent basis, such as when a contestant jumps in celebration. The technique used is called "Bullet Time". Using specially designed cameras, it allows the viewer to see one side of the Cube before the action is frozen, spun to another face of the Cube, and then resumed. Slow-motion shots are again common to show action replays of the task a contestant just completed, or the critical moment of a game, to heighten the excitement of whether the contestant will succeed or fail.

The show makes extensive use of CGI to project images onto the walls and ceiling of the Cube, while a screen on the floor is also capable of showing images. These film techniques make the seemingly simple tasks that are put before the contestants seem much more exciting than they would normally be.

Originally, The Cube had a prize money structure starting at £1,000 and ending at the £250,000 jackpot; in the 2020 series, the jackpot was raised to £1,000,000.^[11]

Below is a breakdown of the prize money structure as used from Series 1–9, showing the game number and amount of prize money that can be won for successfully completing that game. If a player loses all their lives at any point, their game ends, and they leave with nothing. The only exception is for celebrities, playing for charity, in which £1,000 is awarded.

A different game is played at each of the first six levels; the seventh and final level was a game which contestants played before, but at a much higher difficulty level, such as decreased time or a smaller target area.

The format has been sold to international broadcasters. In the case of the Greek, Turkish and U.S. versions from 2010, only a pilot was ever made.

Below is a breakdown of the countries that have created their own versions along with other information including the Jackpot available and broadcast dates.

Most versions of The Cube aired until 2017 used a version of the British intro, for example in the Arab World, Chinese, German, Italian, Russian, Saudi Arabian, and Ukrainian versions, whilst the French and Spanish versions used custom-composed cues whilst maintaining the British music for the games. When the original British version returned, the Australian and Dutch versions also used the new intro, with the Dutch version adding new sound effects.

Legend:

  Currently airing  

  No longer airing  

  Non-broadcast pilot  

Note

The UK version of The Cube was formerly simulcast in Ireland by Virgin Media One. It is broadcast in New Zealand on TV1, and in Australia on the Nine Network. Old series were broadcast in Bosnia and Herzegovina by RTRS, in Serbia by IQS Life and in Singapore by MediaCorp Channel 5. The American version of The Cube was previously broadcast in Hong Kong by ViuTV.^[23]

Across all versions of the show, 8 contestants have won the final game and taken away the jackpot.

An electronic board game based on the series was made available in stores from November 2010.^[24] As of June 2011, the game has been discontinued by most main retailers.^[25] The game comes with an electronic handheld system featuring games such as Time Freeze and Stop Zone, as well as 9 balls- six 18mm blow moulded balls, 1 30mm EVA foam ball, 1 25mm hard ball and one 50mm hard ball. The balls are used for different reasons and the foam ball is used for most games with a ball. For Multisphere, all balls are used unless it is being played in a room with hard floors, in that case, eight balls are used. Tubes are used for almost every physical game for starting positions, voids, tubes, towers, and columns.

Other equipment in the board game are track pieces, discs, clips, z-shaped platform pieces, cannons, blocks, a ball flipper, a beam and card pieces, and a 7 cm x 7 cm x 7 cm plastic cube for playing a series of physical games. The cube is used for a container and to connect onto the cube platform for the electronic games. A reducer also comes with the cube, allowing it to reduce the size of the open top of the cube. This is, in almost all games involving the cube, removed in a simplify. Many well-known and classic games are here as well as new games such as Roller, Catch, Retrieval and Bounce, everyday life games and interesting and complex games.

Around the time of the release of the board game, a Game App version of the series was made available via the iTunes store for use on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. This app version originally featured sixteen games from the series: Balance, Cylinder, Descent, Drop Zone, Focus, Multisphere, Perimeter, Precision, Quantity, Reaction, Revolution, Shatter, Stabilise, Stop Zone, and Time Freeze. The first update for the game came in April 2011 with Pulse added Another update for the game was made available in June 2011, adding a further free game, Succession, and making eight games available via in-app purchase in 2 "packs" Exact, Pathfinder, Totalise and Tower in Pack one and Invert, Composure, Calculate and Navigate in Pack two. A further update was made available in October 2011, adding a further free game, Axis. 2 further games followed in 2012, Eliminate in April, and Symmetry in October. In February 2013, Chase, which at that time had not been shown on TV, was made available. Almost a year later on 21 February 2014 Avoid was added. The most recent update came on 19 May 2014 when 4 games new games were made available via In-App Purchase. These new games were Reset, Plummet, Selection, and Tally all of which are new games from the most recent series. Following the show's revival in 2020, the app saw the first appearance of a two-player game: Circumvent, and a new 4 game pack featuring Cascade, Downfall, Loop, and Dual Stop. In March 2021, three new two-player games were added: Dual Extraction, Revolve, and Interchange. There are currently 42 games available to play in the App version.

On 16 November 2012, a Cube game was released on consoles for the first time. It was available on the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS. 33 games are playable in this version including two unseen new games: Flight Path (already played in international versions) and Retrace. If the Cube is beaten, Extreme Mode is unlocked, featuring more extreme versions of five popular games: Revolution, Pathfinder, Perimeter, Rebound, and Momentum.