Real Steel
Real Steel | |
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Directed by | Shawn Levy |
Screenplay by | John Gatins |
Story by | |
Based on | "Steel" by Richard Matheson |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Mauro Fiore |
Edited by | Dean Zimmerman |
Music by | Danny Elfman |
Production companies |
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Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 127 minutes[4] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $110 million[5] |
Box office | $299.3 million[6] |
Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction sports film starring Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo and co-produced and directed by Shawn Levy for DreamWorks Pictures. The film is based on the short story "Steel", written by Richard Matheson, which was originally published in the May 1956 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later adapted into a 1963 Twilight Zone episode. The film features a former boxer (Jackman) whose sport is now played by robots. He must build and train his own robot with his son. Real Steel was in development for several years before production began on June 24, 2010. Filming took place primarily in the U.S. state of Michigan. Animatronic robots were built for the film, and motion capture technology was used to depict the rodeo brawling of computer-generated robots and animatronics, respectively.
Real Steel was distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Touchstone Pictures label in the United States on October 7, 2011,[7] grossing nearly $300 million at the box office. It received mixed reviews on Metacritic and positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, which said it had a silly premise but was a good film. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 84th Academy Awards.
Plot
In 2020, human boxers were replaced with robots. In Texas, former boxer Charlie Kenton owns the robot Ambush, until it is destroyed in a fight against a bull belonging to promoter and carnival owner Ricky. Having bet money he didn't have with Ricky that Ambush would win, Charlie absconds before Ricky can collect.
After the fight, Charlie learns that his ex-girlfriend died and he must attend a hearing deciding the future of their 11-year-old son Max, whom he had no contact with Charlie since his birth. Max's maternal aunt Debra and her husband Marvin want full custody. Charlie bargains to cede custody of Max for a large sum of money, and Marvin negotiates that Charlie retains custody of Max for three months while Marvin and Debra go on vacation. Settling into a gym owned by Bailey Tallet, the daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach, Charlie uses half the money to acquire the once-famous World Robot Boxing robot Noisy Boy. He and Max take Noisy Boy to Crash Palace, an underworld boxing arena run by his friend Finn, where Noisy Boy is destroyed against another robot boxer, Midas. While scavenging for replacements in a junkyard, Max discovers Atom, an obsolete, dilapidated but mostly intact sparring robot designed to withstand severe damage, with a rare "shadow function" to mirror and memorize handler or opponent movements.
At Max's behest, Charlie pits Atom against another robot, Metro, and is surprisingly victorious. Max integrates Noisy Boy's voice command hardware with Atom and convinces Charlie to streamline Atom's movements. This results in a series of victories, culminating in Charlie being offered a World Robot Boxing fight with Atom against the national champion robot Twin Cities. The fight starts with Atom on the attack, but Twin Cities easily takes the offensive. Charlie notices a hitch whenever Twin Cities throws a right punch, and he exploits this to win by knockout. Elated by their success, Max challenges the undefeated global champion robot Zeus. After the fight, Ricky and two henchmen attack Charlie for bailing earlier and rob him and Max of their winnings, prompting a defeated and dejected Charlie to return Max to Debra.
This upsets Max, and when Charlie tries to convince Max that it's better to live without him, Max reveals that all he wanted was for Charlie to fight for him and be there as a father. After Max leaves, Charlie returns to Tallet's Gym and talks with Bailey. Persuaded by Bailey, Charlie reconciles with Max and convinces Debra to allow Max to witness the fight with Zeus that Charlie has arranged.
Later, when the fight begins, Zeus knocks Atom down with its first punch and dominates the first round, but Atom manages to survive the first round, stunning the audience. Ricky, who bet with Finn on Atom losing within the first round, tries to leave but is cornered by Finn and his fight bookmakers. As the fight continues, Atom lands multiple punches and withstands further attacks but makes no definitive progress. Late in the fourth round, Atom's voice-response controls are damaged, forcing Charlie to fight Zeus with Atom's shadow function. In the fifth and final round, Atom wards off Zeus long enough to deplete its power core, at which point Charlie directs Atom to begin its counterattack against an exhausted Zeus. With Zeus's programmers unable to compensate, the designer, Tak Mashido, intervenes and controls Zeus manually. Atom gives Zeus a beating, who barely avoids losing by knockout. Zeus wins by decision and remains undefeated, but Mashido's group is left humiliated by the near-loss and Zeus being critically damaged. Despite the match result, Atom is triumphantly labeled the "People's Champion" by the cheering crowd as Max and Charlie celebrate.
Cast
- Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton: A former boxer
- Dakota Goyo as Max Kenton: Charlie's son
- Evangeline Lilly as Bailey Tallet: A boxing gym owner and daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach
- Anthony Mackie as Finn: A friend of Charlie
- Olga Fonda as Farra Lemkova: Tak Mashido's partner
- Karl Yune as Tak Mashido: A robot fighting inventor and designer of Zeus
- Kevin Durand as Ricky: A negotiator and enemy of Charlie.
- Hope Davis as Debra: Max's aunt
- James Rebhorn as Marvin: Debra's husband and Max's uncle
- Gregory Sims as Bill Panner
Production
Development
Based on Richard Matheson's 1956 short story "Steel",[8] the original screenplay was written by Dan Gilroy and was purchased by DreamWorks for $850,000 in 2003 or 2005 (sources differ).[8][9] The project was one of 17 that DreamWorks took from Paramount Pictures when they split in 2008.[8] Director Peter Berg expressed interest in the project in mid-2009 but went no further.[9] Levy was attached to the project in September 2009,[10] and Jackman was cast in the starring role in November for a $9 million fee.[11] In the same month, Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider at DreamWorks greenlit the project.[8] Les Bohem and Jeremy Leven had worked on Gilroy's screenplay, but in 2009 John Gatins was working on a new draft.[9] When Levy joined the project, he worked with Gatins to revise the screenplay,[12] spending a total of six weeks fine-tuning the script. Advertising company FIVE33 did a two-hundred page "bible" about robot boxing. Levy said he was invited by Spielberg and Snider while finishing Date Night, and while the director initially considered Real Steel to have "a crazy premise," he accepted after reading the script and feeling it could be "a really humanistic sports drama."[13]
Filming
Real Steel had a production budget of $110 million.
Jason Matthews of Legacy Effects, successor to
For scenes when computer-generated robots brawl, "simulcam" motion capture technology, developed for the film Avatar, was used. As Levy described the process, "[Y]ou're not only capturing the fighting of live human fighters, but you're able to take that and see it converted to [CGI] robots on a screen instantaneously. Simulcam puts the robots in the ring in real time, so you are operating your shots to the fight, whereas even three, four years ago, you used to operate to empty frames, just guessing at what stuff was going to look like."[22] Boxing hall-of-famer Sugar Ray Leonard was an adviser for these scenes[14] and gave Jackman boxing lessons so his moves would be more natural.[23]
Music
Real Steel's soundtrack consists of 13 tracks featuring artists including
Release
Real Steel had its
Marketing
DreamWorks released the first trailer for Real Steel in December 2010 and it was attached to
Jakks Pacific released a toy line with action figures based on Atom, Zeus, Noisy Boy, Midas and Twin Cities.[citation needed] The company has also released a one-on-one, playset fighting game with robots in a ring.[38] ThreeA released a line of high-end sixth-scale figures, as adapted by Australian artist Ashley Wood, based on Ambush, Atom, Midas, and Noisy Boy.
Video game
Jump Games released a fighting video game based on the film for Android and iOS devices,[39] and Yuke's made a game for the PS3 and Xbox 360.[40] An arcade game was also released by Innovative Concepts in Entertainment (ICE).
Home media
The film was released on DVD,
Reception
Box office
Real Steel earned $85.5 million in North America, and $213.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $299.3 million.[6] It had a worldwide opening of $49.4 million.[43] In North America, it topped the box office with $8.5 million on its opening day and $27.3 million in total on its opening weekend, claiming the number one spot, ahead of the other new nationwide release (The Ides of March) and all holdovers.[44] It managed first-place debuts in 11 countries including Hugh Jackman's native Australia ($4.2 million).[45]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 60% based on reviews from 233 critics and an average rating of 5.91/10. The website's consensus is, "Silly premise notwithstanding, this is a well-made Hollywood movie: Thrilling and exciting action with just enough characterization."[46] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[47] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore during the opening weekend gave the film a grade A, on a scale from A+ to F.[48]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film 3 stars out of 4, saying, "Real Steel is a real movie. It has characters, it matters who they are, it makes sense of its action, it has a compelling plot. Sometimes you go into a movie with low expectations and are pleasantly surprised."[49] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A−, saying director Levy "makes good use of his specialized skill in blending people and computer-made imaginary things into one lively, emotionally satisfying story".[50]
Claudia Puig of USA Today said, "Though the premise of fighting robots does seem a plausible and intriguing extension of the contemporary WWE world, Real Steel is hampered by leaden, clichéd moments in which a stubborn boy teaches his childish father a valuable lesson."[51] James White of the UK magazine Empire gave the film 3 of 5 stars, saying, "Rocky with robots? It's not quite in Balboa's weight class, but Real Steel at least has some heft. There's barely a story beat among the beat-downs that you won't expect, and sometimes the saccharine gets in the way of the spectacle, but on the whole this is enjoyable family entertainment."[52]
Accolades
Award | Nominee | Category | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Academy Awards | Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor, and Swen Gillberg | Best Visual Effects | Nominated |
People's Choice Awards | Hugh Jackman | Favorite Action Movie Star | Won |
Young Artist Award[53] | Dakota Goyo | Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor | Won |
Saturn Award |
Best Performance by a Young Actor | Nominated |
Future
Potential sequel
On August 8, 2021, Levy said that he wants to reunite Jackman and also Ryan Reynolds for a sequel to Real Steel. According to Levy, a Real Steel sequel is something he has always discussed with Jackman, and that it would be interesting if he could get Reynolds to star in it as well.[54]
Television series
On January 14, 2022, it was reported that a series is in early development for Disney+.[55][56]
See also
- "Steel" (The Twilight Zone), a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone also based on Richard Matheson's short story
- "Raging Bender" from the second season of Futurama also depicts a hidden human controller of a robotic boxer.
- List of boxing films
- List of sports films – boxing
Notes
- ^ Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Touchstone Pictures banner.[3][2]
References
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- ^ a b "'Real Steel' pulls for Disney, DreamWorks". October 15, 2011. Archived from the original on October 5, 2023. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
But it's DreamWorks that produced the film, releasing it through Disney's Touchstone banner
- ^ Eller, Claudia (February 10, 2009). "DreamWorks gets Disney cash in distribution deal". Los Angeles Times.
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- ^ a b c d e Shawn Levy audio commentary, Real Steel Blu-Ray
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- ^ "Building The Bots", Real Steel Blu-Ray
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- ^ Ebert, Roger (October 5, 2011). "Real Steel Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on May 7, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
- ^ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (October 13, 2011). "Real Steel (2011)". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on March 17, 2014. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
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External links
- Official website
- Real Steel at IMDb