What Ever Happened to ‘Real Steel 2’?

Atom was ready to take on all challengers…except for the 12-year span since the first film.

Director Shawn Levy‘s Real Steel seemingly appeared out of nowhere back in 2011, a film that boasted Hugh Jackman, only three years removed from his proclamation as People’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” and big-ass robots beating the cogs out of one another. It was a combination that couldn’t miss. And it didn’t. Real Steel was a huge hit, one that went beyond its Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot premise (which the marketing of the film focused primarily on), as it proved to be a winning combination of heart, redemption, family, and Cinderella story. The effects – a seamless blend of practical and CGI – even earned the film an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. Talks of a sequel began shortly after its release, and before we knew it, Real Steel 2 was put into development. Now, 12 years after the original was released, Real Steel 2 still hasn’t happened. Is a sequel ever going to come to fruition, or is it down for the count?

Real Steel

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) used to be a prizefighter but lost his chance to win a title when heavy, towering robots took over the boxing ring. Now working as a small-time promoter, Charlie pieces together scrap metal into low-end fighters, barely earning enough to make it from one underground venue to the next. After hitting rock bottom, Charlie reluctantly teams with his estranged son, Max (Dakota Goyo), to build and train a championship robot for a last shot at redemption.

Release DateSeptember 28, 2011DirectorShawn LevyCastHugh Jackman , Dakota Goyo , Evangeline Lilly , Anthony Mackie , Kevin Durand , Hope DavisRuntime127What Happened in ‘Real Steel’?

The original film begins in the near future, 2020, where human boxers have been largely replaced by robots (it’s now 2023 – still no fighting robots, either). Charlie Kenton (Jackman), a former boxer himself, travels with his robot Ambush, taking on competitors for prize money. The film opens at a carnival, where Charlie bets money on Ambush beating a bull. Bad call, as Ambush gets destroyed by the beast, prompting Charlie to flee. Soon after, Charlie learns his ex-girlfriend has died, and there is a hearing to decide the fate of Max (Dakota Goyo), their son. At the hearing, Max’s aunt and her husband seek full custody of Max, which Charlie will happily agree to for $100,000, with $50,000 paid in advance. They agree on the condition that Charlie keep Max with him for three months as they go away. Charlie takes Max to the gym owned by his old boxing coach’s daughter, Bailey (Evangeline Lilly), and uses the advance to buy Noisy Boy, a once-famed robot boxer. He and Max take Noisy Boy to an underground boxing arena, where Noisy Boy is defeated. Max, a robot-boxing and tech wunderkind, comes across a disheveled sparring robot, Atom, as he scavenges for parts. Max convinces Charlie to use Atom in his next fight, which Atom wins.

After a series of victories, Max challenges boxing champion Zeus to a fight. But after being jumped by the carnival owner and his henchmen, Charlie brings Max home, just as Charlie was learning to be a father. After talking with Bailey, Charlie reconciles with Max and brings him to the match he arranged with Zeus. Zeus is powerful, but Atom holds his own. When Atom’s voice recognition is damaged, Charlie flips on the robot’s “shadowing” feature, allowing Charlie to fight Zeus by proxy, nearly destroying the champion. The decision goes to Zeus, but Atom has endeared itself to a roaring crowd, much like a certain “Italian Stallion” from another boxing film. The future was bright for Atom and the father/son team that believed in it and, eventually, in themselves.

Should We Still Expect a ‘Real Steel 2’?

It was the perfect setup for a sequel, with Atom’s future in World Robot Boxing seemingly cemented. Plans for it popped up almost immediately, with director Levy speaking directly to DreamWorks Co-Chairman/CEO Stacey Snider on a regular basis in 2011. By 2014, there was still no sequel, although the director did say that it was still being developed. At the Toronto International Film Festival that year, Levy got a bit more specific as to where the sequel was at. “We have been quietly developing a sequel to Real Steel for three and a half years. We’ve come up with some great scripts, but Hugh and I would only make it if the plot feels fresh, but also the character journeys feel fresh, and we’ve found both but never at the same time. It’s ongoing. I know the clock is ticking.” Then, radio silence. Nothing confirmed, nothing rumored, just nothing. The ongoing search for a script that met the criteria that he and Jackman were striving for was clearly elusive, assuming the hunt for it was still on at all.

Shawn Levy Has His Eyes on a Disney+ Series

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Collider’s own Steve Weintraub got some exciting updates about a Real Steel series on Disney+ during an interview with Shawn Levy in February of 2022. “The day that story [Disney+ series] broke, we shifted into what we call the incoming call business, which is the business of you’re sitting back and your phone’s ringing, and it’s just incoming calls,” the director explained, “And it’s agents one after another saying, ‘My writer is dying to write it. Can you meet with my writer? My writer has an idea.'” Levy also confessed to being pleasantly surprised at the interest the proposed series garnered, saying, “It got more traction than some stories that are about new business or more recent movies. It was just confirmation of what I have felt… which is that people have a love for Real Steel that is certainly enduring, but very personal to them.”

Then came December that year, and little progress had been made public on the series, and nothing whatsoever on a theatrical sequel. Levy commented that the delay in any progress was largely due to his overprotectiveness of the film’s legacy, preferring to have no series at all as opposed to one that felt “wrong.” Levy did assure fans that the Real Steel series on Disney+ was “in very active and promising development.” What made the latest update promising was Levy’s confirmation that writers had actually been selected for the project, the furthest confirmed development since we last saw Atom, with Max upon his shoulder, taking in the adulation of the crowd in the final scenes of the original. Now with that said, the so-called “active and promising” development is still being defined as in the early stages, the stage it has supposedly been in for an entire year.

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He also talked about his ‘Real Steel’ TV series at TIFF 2023.Renewed Interest in ‘Real Steel’ May Push a Follow-up AlongImage via Dreamworks Studios

Alas, no bone would be thrown then for the fans to gnaw on in anticipation, nor have any bones been thrown since. It’s unclear whether Jackman would return, and Max would have to be recast, as unconfirmed reports indicate Goyo has left acting. That is, assuming either character is involved at all. However, the film reemerged on Netflix recently, and became one of the streamer’s top watches, with fans clamoring for a sequel to the ‘perfect’ Real Steel. This revitalized interest may be the impetus needed for a Real Steel follow-up, be it film or series, to be pushed along more rapidly. It would certainly be in the best interests of those involved to pick up the pace, with a contender waiting in the wings to pick up where Atom left off. That contender is none other than Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, a film project made public with a 2021 announcement that actor Vin Diesel would star in and produce a live-action feature version of the tabletop boxing game for Universal Studios/Mattel Films. While any news on the progress of that particular feature hasn’t exactly been freely rolling out, it has to feel, to at least some degree, that whoever gets out of the gate first wins the spoils. But as we learned from Real Steel, you can’t count an underdog out, and while Levy’s Atom may get beaten about by Diesel’s red-and-blue robot warriors, Atom certainly won’t go down without a fight.