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Real Steel Director Shawn Levy Updates Disney+ Series Production

Published Sat, 26 Feb 2022 13:42:11 -0600

For fans of the Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly & Anthony Mackie-starring Real Steel, last month brought some excellent news when Disney+ confirmed early development on a series based on the film, with the film's director Shawn Levy (currently: Netflix's The Adam Project) set to executive produce. The 2011 feature focused on an ex-boxer & father (Jackman) and his son (Dakota Goyo), as they reconnect as a family over an obsolete junkyard sparring robot that might just be their key to something better. Now, Levy is offering an update on how things have been going since the news first broke, a realistic timeline for production, and his thoughts on how the positive online reaction has been during a recent interview with Collider:

On How the News Led to Waves of "Incoming Call Business": "We were slowly reaching out to some agents and writers. 'Hey, you want to write a Real Steel series?' The day that story 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. 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.' So, it shifted the dynamic of the search for a writer and a take. And it just became a lot easier because suddenly the volunteers and the ideas were flowing our way."

While There "Can't Be Filming This Year," They're "Making Good Headway" When It Comes to Writers: "It can't be filming this year. We have now had several actual writer pitch meetings. We are narrowing down the search and the ideas behind the take. There's a lot of different ways to go. It's a little bit daunting because a lot of those ways are valid and cool. And which one is the right one?" Levy explained. "I'm just going to have to go with my gut about what is the right one because there is no objective arbiter of right and wrong. I don't think we're going to, no. Because even once we pick our writer, we're then opening a room, we're breaking a whole season of television. So it's more of a process. But we are definitely making good headway now. And the way the news broke and took off has been a big boon to the writer search."

On His Reaction to How Well-Received the "Real Steel" Series Story Was: "Yes. I was sitting at 'The Adam Project' mix the day that story broke. I'm looking at the dozens and dozens of sites that picked up that story. A story about a possible show based on a movie from a decade ago. 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 on Twitter specifically for years, which is that people have a love for 'Real Steel' that is certainly enduring, but very personal to them. Very emotional for them. I was already excited about this possibility of developing that world via a series form for Disney+. But the way that story took off was final proof that 'Oh, wow. The love is still there. The interest is still there. Now I just got to tell the right story in the right way.'"

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