Jackman is the Real Steel

Hugh Jackman is going crazy over robots as he signs on to star in Real Steel. The Shawn Levy directed feature is under Dreamworks with Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider overseeing the production. The movie is originally based on a short story created by Richard Matheson with an interesting take to begin with. Here’s more straight from Variety:

Story centers on a fighter who has to reinvent himself when human boxers are replaced by robots. Jackman will play a struggling Robot Boxing promoter who finds a discarded robot that always seems to win. He also discovers he has a 11-year-old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top.

Although grounded in the father-son relationship, Levy describes the film as a “rousing sports movie” with Jackman’s character “a former boxer who can no longer do the only job he’s good at, and one particular robot that may be his return to grace.”

“When we took it with us, we really highlighted it as something we would put the pedal to metal on,” said DreamWorks co-president of production Mark Sourian. “It’s a project that Steven always wanted to do. It just came together rapidly after we left Paramount.”