Real Steel

In 2020, human boxers are replaced by robots. Charlie Kenton, a former boxer, owns Ambush, but loses it in a fight against a bull belonging to promoter and carnival owner Ricky. Having bet 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 now attend a hearing deciding the future of their son, Max, a robot-boxing fan with whom Charlie has virtually no contact since Max was born. Max's maternal aunt, Debra, and her wealthy husband, Marvin, want full custody, which Charlie bargains for $100,000, half in advance, and Marvin negotiates that Charlie retains 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 acquires the once-famous Noisy Boy, but it is destroyed in an underground match against another robot boxer, Midas. As Charlie and Max attempt to scavenge parts from a junkyard to make a new robot, Max discovers Atom, an obsolete but intact sparring robot designed to withstand severe damage, and can mirror opponent and handler movements and store them in its memory due to its rare "shadow function".

At Max's behest, Charlie pits Atom against Metro, whom Atom overcomes. Max programs Noisy Boy's vocal-respond controls in Atom, and convinces Charlie to help him with Atom's fighting-move memory. This results in a series of victories, culminating in Charlie being offered a fight in World Robot Boxing, pitting Atom against national champion 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 using this, Charlie controls Atom to a win by knockout. Elated by their success, Max challenges undefeated global champion Zeus, with the audience squarely on their side. After the fight, Ricky and his 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 him that living without him is better for Max, Max says he always wanted Charlie to fight for him and be there as a father. After Max leaves, Charlie returns to Tallet's Gym. While talking with Bailey about the events, the two kiss, revealing their attraction to each other. Persuaded by Bailey, Charlie arranges the Zeus challenge Max wanted and convinces Debra to allow Max to witness the fight.

Zeus dominates early, knocking Atom down with its first punch; Atom continues to get back up despite Zeus' punishment. Atom survives the first round, stunning the audience. Ricky, who had made a $100,000 bet with Finn, a friend of Charlie's, that Atom would not last the first round, tries to slip away, but is cornered by the fight's bookmakers. Meanwhile in the ring, Atom lands multiple punches but continues to be knocked down repeatedly. Late in the fourth round, Atom's vocal-respond controls are damaged, forcing Charlie to use its shadow function to make Atom mimic his boxing skills. With Zeus' programmers unable to compensate, the designer, Tak Mashido, personally takes control like Charlie has. Zeus is given a sound beating, once even hitting the ground and barely avoiding losing by knockout, but wins the match by number of hits since Atom could not beat it within the limit of five rounds. Zeus remains undefeated, but with Mashido's group left humiliated by the near-loss, and Atom is triumphantly labeled the people's champion.

Director Levy on set with Jackman in July 2010

Based on Richard Matheson's 1956 short story "Steel."[7] The original screenplay was written by Dan Gilroy and was purchased by DreamWorks for $850,000 in 2003 or 2005 (sources differ).[7][8] The project was one of 17 that DreamWorks took from Paramount Pictures when they split in 2008.[7] Director Peter Berg expressed interest in the project in mid-2009 but went no further.[8] Levy was attached to the project in September 2009,[9] and Jackman was cast in the starring role in November for a $9 million fee.[10] In the same month, Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider at DreamWorks greenlit the project.[7] Les Bohem and Jeremy Leven had worked on Gilroy's screenplay, but in 2009 John Gatins was working on a new draft.[8] When Levy joined the project, he worked with Gatins to revise the screenplay,[11] 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."[12]

Real Steel had a production budget of $110 million.[4] Levy chose to set the film in state fairs and other "old-fashioned" Americana settings that would exude nostalgia and create a warm tone for the film's father-son story.[13] There was also an attempt for the scenery to blend in new and old technology.[12] Filming began in June 2010,[14] and ended by October 15, 2010.[15] Locations include areas around Detroit, Michigan, and across the state,[16] including at the Renaissance Center, the Cobo Arena, the Detroit Fire Department headquarters, the Russell Industrial Center, the Ingham County Courthouse in Mason, Michigan, the Leslie Michigan Railroad Depot, the former Belle Isle Zoo, and the Highland Park Ford Plant.[17]

Jason Matthews of Legacy Effects, successor to Stan Winston Studios, was hired to turn production designer Tom Meyer's robot designs into practical animatronic props. He said, "We have 26-and-a-half total live-action robots that were made for this film. They all have hydraulic neck controls. Atom has RC [radio-controlled] hands as well."[18] According to Jackman, executive producer Spielberg "actually said to Shawn, 'You should really have real elements where you can.' ... Basically if they're not walking or fighting, that's a real robot."[19] Levy added that Spielberg gave the example of Jurassic Park, where Winston's animatronic dinosaurs "got a better performance from the actors, as they were seeing something real, and gave the visual effects team an idea of what it would look like." As Real Steel was not based on a toy, Meyer said that "there was no guideline" for the robots, and each was designed from scratch, with an attempt to put "different personality and aesthetics," according to Levy. In Atom's case, it tried to have a more humanizing design to be an "everyman" who could attract the audience's sympathy and serve as a proxy to the viewer, with a fencing mask that Meyer explained served to show "his identity was a bit hidden, so you have to work harder to get to see him."[20] Executive producer Robert Zemeckis added that the mask "became a screen so we can project what we want on Atom's face." Damage was added to the robots' decoration to show how they were machines worn out by intense battles.[12]

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."[21] Boxing hall-of-famer Sugar Ray Leonard was an adviser for these scenes[13] and gave Jackman boxing lessons so his moves would be more natural.[22]

Real Steel had its world premiere on September 6, 2011, in Paris at the Le Grand Rex.[23] The film had its United States premiere on October 2, 2011, in Los Angeles at the Gibson Amphitheatre.[24] It was commercially released in Australia on October 6, 2011,[25] followed by the United States and Canada on October 7, 2011. Its U.S. release, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,[26] was originally scheduled for November 18, 2011,[14] but it was moved earlier to avoid competition with the first part of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.[27] The film was released in 3,440 theaters in the United States and Canada,[28] including 270 IMAX screenings. There were also over 100 IMAX screenings in territories outside the United States and Canada, with 62 screenings on October 7.[29]

• "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 sports films – boxing

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• Real Steel at IMDb