RichardMatheson

'Real Steel' Set in Stone

Nov 24th 2009 10:25AM By: Jacob Hall

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Several weeks ago, the news broke that Richard Matheson's story story Real Steel was getting the blockbuster treatment courtesy of producer Steven Spielberg and director Shawn Levy, with Hugh Jackman the front-runner for the lead role. Today, Variety is reporting that the project has been greenlit by Dreamworks with an $80 million price tag and a June 2010 start date.

The story follows a former boxer living in a futuristic world where massive robots duke it out in the ring instead of human beings. Naturally, he comes across an underdog robot who he can train to be the best and finds out about the 11-year-old son he never knew he had. Various forms of bonding ensue. The story was previously a mediocre Twilight Zone episode starring Lee Marvin. The robots looked like walking wax figures there, so I expect we'll be getting a Transformers-esque update in that department.

This is Dreamworks' first film since securing new financing and I can see why they picked it. People like Rocky and people like Transformers and people like Hugh Jackman, and Shawn Levy tends to make movies that make a tidy profit.

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Will Hugh Jackman Rock 'Em and Sock 'Em in 'Real Steel' ?

Nov 12th 2009 2:02PM By: John Gholson

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Hammacher Schlemmer's RC boxing robot toysSwitching gears from his middle-of-the-road comedies, director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Cheaper By the Dozen) is taking on a sci-fi sports drama based on a short story by Richard Matheson. The film, Real Steel, takes place in a future world where human boxers have been replaced by realistic androids who are able to dish out more viscerally satisfying carnage on each other than humans can.

Hugh Jackman is the frontrunner for the lead role, and Levy shared a little about his character's place in the script, "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 wants to focus on the father/son relationship at the heart of the story over explosive CGI-driven robot battles.

It's that approach that caused producer Steven Spielberg to hand the project over to Levy, a director whose body of work doesn't even hint at being able to do dramatic science-fiction. Production on Real Steel should ramp up in 2010 with an eye toward a 2011 release date.

(via SciFi Wire)

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Sci-Fi Lunch Break: The 'Black Button' Alternative to 'The Box'

Nov 9th 2009 1:05PM By: Peter Hall

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[Welcome to the Sci-Fi Lunch Break, where we'll be supplying you with a cool bit of audio/visual goodness to break up the monotony of the work day. You bring the turkey on rye, we'll bring you something out of this world to watch while you eat it.]

It's always hard to believe it when filmmakers say they had never seen or heard of another, similar film when they made theirs. Such is the case with Black Button, a 7-minute short from some aspiring Australians made for a mere $200 featuring a well dressed man who offers a person $10,000,000 if he'll simply press a button, killing someone else in the process.

Dark Heart Productions, the makers of Black Button, claim to have no knowledge of Richard Matheson's Button, Button, the Twilight Zone episode that inspired The Box, and in this particular case I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Their short has a very different ending and moral core than either incarnation of Matheson's story; and unlike The Box, at only a handful of minutes, Black Button doesn't have nearly enough time to spread itself too thin.

Check it out.

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Hugh Jackman to Fight Giant Robots

Sep 30th 2009 5:52PM By: Erik Davis

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When he's not clawing his way back to the big screen in a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Variety reports that Hugh Jackman is in talks to star in Real Steel for DreamWorks, with Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) attached to direct. They're pitching this one as a "Rocky-with-robots saga", and it looks to take place in a world where human boxing is outlawed, only to be replaced by giant 2000-pound robot boxing. Nice.

Jackman would play an ex-fighter who turns to promoting and stumbles across a discarded robot that somehow always seems to win. Throw in a subplot that involves the 13-year-old son our hero never knew, and we've got the recipe for a robot flick that won't involve Michael Bay in any way, shape or form. Nice. Based on a Richard Matheson short story (which appeared as an original Twilight Zone episode called "Steel"), Dan Gilroy, Les Bohem and John Gatins have worked on the script.

What do you think of the idea? Anyone familiar with that old Twilight Zone episode? Will this work as a film?


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