More details on Hugh Jackman’s robot boxing movie

While on the rounds promoting the DVD for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian director Shawn Levy was asked about Real Steel, a sci-fi film that would see Hugh Jackman boxing Rocky-style against robots.

From Sci-Fi Wire:

“Hugh Jackman plays a former boxer who can therefore no longer do the only thing he was ever good at and has to make his way in this new world,” Levy said in an exclusive interview. “It’s faithful to the story in that that story was very much about a down-on-his-luck, slightly desperate journeyman who works in this robot boxing sport and who is desperately needing redemption and one last shot. The movie is more Rocky than Transformers.”

Levy has not cast the main character’s son yet but has a good idea about the robots. “They are most definitely not Transformers, not Terminators, definitely not WALL-Es, either,” Levy said. “Unlike a lot of these others, these are human-built, human-scale fighting machines. They are built for human spectacle. People in this movie have gotten bored with human carnage and human violence. So in the quest for more, more, more, this sport has evolved to this.”

According to Levy Steven Spielberg offered him the movie and after directing a bunch of comedies he wanted to do something different, so he accepted. I would gladly see the movie just based on the plot. The last time I saw robots boxing was in an episode of Futurama, and I wanted more!