Even though the film doesn’t actually step into the ring until October 7 next year, Shawn Levy has been hard at work fine-tuning robot boxing drama Real Steel, especially since he’s on a deadline. You might think he can sit back and take his time with the film, but in reality, he’s aiming to get it completed and, as he says “on the shelf” by May.
So when he asked Empire to come and take a look at some work-in-progress scenes along with the first teaser trailer, which launches today, we were intrigued to see what he’d been up to.
Despite being a veteran of effects-heavy comedies such as the Night at the Museum films, this is a big change of gear for the director, who is handling his first true drama. And though the robots smashing seven bells out of each other is a large part of the appeal, the biggest element is the father/son story of former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and the child (Dakota Goyo) he must reconnect with after leaving when the lad was just a baby. The pair discovers a neglected sparring droid at a junkyard and together decide that the machine – Atom – might just have what it takes to be a champion in a world where robot boxing between 8-foot-tall behemoths has replaced the human version.
But the dramatic side of the story is why we won’t see Real Steel in 3D, because Levy decided the story didn’t fit the format. “If the movie was 80% robot boxing, I probably would have pushed harder for 3D, but because it's really more like 30% robo-boxing and 70% drama. Not unlike the first Rocky, which is 20% boxing, 80% that underdog redemption story.
Still, don’t go thinking you’ll be short-changed when it comes to rock ‘em sock ‘em robo-action. “If what you're looking for is a crazy f*****g badass robot boxing movie, hopefully the movie has the goods to be enjoyable on that level. But I would argue that even in the most jaded cinephile heart, there beats a humanity and a desire to have an escapist emotional experience at the movies. So the goal here, and we've had some early, small screenings, is that you come in thinking you're going to see a cool robot boxing movie, you don't expect this emotional underdog, father/son movie. And it's not one that's soft and overly sentimental, but hopefully it's one that's poignant.”
Thanks partly to the advice of executive producer Steven Spielberg, the robots in the film are also being brought to life by a blend of those shiny VFX and some very real, practical ‘bots created by Legacy Effects. “The decision early on was in my very first meeting with Steven. He said, 'You know, I recognise that **Jurassic Park **was a long time ago, but I maintain that building practical animatronics has a value that makes it well worth doing. Even though it can be done, and perhaps easier in computer,” says Levy.
“He advocated strongly for it the very first time we sat down about this movie, and what I came to realise is, it really did two things that were critical: It really, really affects performance. There is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest. The dozens of people working on this at Digital Domain, they knew that you couldn't get away with almost photo real, because we had real real in the room...”
The finished product arrives in October. But the trailer and two new pictures have launched, so go and take a look.