Known for directing family movies and comedies, including the likes of Night at the Museum and Date Night, director Shawn Levy’s latest movie sees him moving into new territory, and the world of robot-boxing, with Real Steel.
Levy had been actively looking for a non-comedy movie to direct, and was understandably thrilled when legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg (the little known man behind E.T., The Goonies, and many more classic films) called him up and pitched him the idea for Real Steel; a film with boxing robots, that’s also a sports movie, and a family drama.
Shawn himself says that “to think anyone could bring out a robot movie in 2011 and simply have that perceived as fresh and original, you’d have to be deluded”, but he also believes “you’ve never seen a robot movie like Real Steel”; because in other robot movies “the human becomes the prop to serve the robot’s story” whereas in his, there are plenty of robots wailing on each other but, “it’s the story of redemption between the father, his estranged son, and the robot, which is more important.”
Shawn also went to extreme lengths in order to not only make the effects look realistic, but coax better performances from the actors; including building four of the film’s robots for real, and allowing the actors to play off actual moving machines (which he repeatedly stated; and we completely believe; “is better than a tennis ball on a stick”), and even using motion capture on real fighters before the robots were animated on top.
However not only has motion capture been used in Real Steel, but Shawn also hired a true boxing legend; Sugar Ray Leonard (who he referred to as a “thrill”, and fondly reminisces about “going for lunch and listening to stories about Hearns, Hagler, and loads of his amazing fights”); to come on board as a consultant, help choreograph some of the fight scenes, and teach lead actor Hugh Jackman (X-Men’s Wolverine) how to box properly; giving the film an air of believability, and the boxing a true sense of authenticity.
He’s also rather pleased with his cast; “Hugh comes with such an air of goodwill I was able to have him be a complete asshole for the first half of the movie, and still have people root for him, and as I was a huge Lost fan I loved getting Evangeline Lily involved”; and is decidedly happy about the emotional reaction the film seems to be getting; as when he questioned Evangeline about the rumours of her potentially quitting acting “she said the script made her cry, and that she still wanted to do things that made her feel like that, which is great.”
Everyone who was unlucky enough to miss Shawn’s Real Steel presentation at Empire Presents Big Screen last weekend, and his spontaneous premiere ticket giveaways, will have to wait until the film is released on October 7th in the US, and on October 14th in the UK to see the robots in action, but anyone who wants just a little taste of the action before then, can find the official trailer here.
