I like Hugh Jackman, he seems like a genuinely nice guy, unlike most Hollywood types so I’m always interested when a story pops up involving the Aussie-born actor and this one is even more interesting than most. It looks like Jackman’s next project will be a film based on the Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend and Button, Button upon which The Box is based) called Real Steel. The story has been described as like a “Robot Rocky” but I’ll let Variety fill you in on the details.

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 I read this description, what comes to mind is the robot destruction derby sequence from A.I. They describe it as a ‘rousing sports movie’ but I’m finding it hard to see how they will make the boxing element compelling since we know that a crushing loss won’t mean anything to the emotionless sportsman. The other side of the coin is Jackman’s role, which I presume will be the focus of the movie, at which point it becomes a father/son relationship movie that happens to be set in this sci-fi sports setting, and then the question is how believable and relate-able is their relationship? Only time will tell.

Source: Variety