This is the first picture of Hugh Jackman on the set of Real Steel, from Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy and producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis.  The plot, as previously reported:

A Rocky-esque tale of a fighter who has to reinvent himself when human boxing becomes obsolete, replaced by 2000 pound human-like robots. Jackman plays the ex-fighter, who becomes a Robot Boxing promoter, but whose chances of success are hampered by his access to sub-standard robot parts. That is until he discovers a discarded robot that always seems to win. The ex-fighter has also discovered he’s the father of a 13-year old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top.

That robot’s name?  Seabiscuit.  Anyway, USA Today, who published the publicity still, report that the scenes between robots and humans will be filmed using life-sized animatronics (not CGI), and that the fight scenes will be performance capture.  They also report (no joke) that they’ve hired Sugar Ray Leonard as an adviser.  (“So tell us, Sugar, in your expert opinion, how many ‘bots could a robot box if a robot could box bots?”)

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When Peter Berg signed on for Battleship, it meant Dreamworks had to find someone else to direct Real Steel.  They chose Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy for the project, which can basically be described as When Rocky Met Robot Jox.

The “Steel” story line takes place in a near future where human boxing has been outlawed, and heavy, humanoid robots slug it out in the ring instead. Into this world step a father and his estranged teenage son, who train an extraordinary fighter.

I can hear the pitch now: “See, it’s like Iron Man meets Terminator meets Fight Club, with a dash of f’ck it, let’s say Transformers.”  And keep in mind this isn’t a Japanese direct-to-DVD flick, it’s being produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis.  Now, please hold for a truly awful PR quote…

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Michael Bay recently wrapped production on Transformers 2 and quickly took to the internetz to publicize it. He has a message for all the haters: his robots inspire empathy, and if you watch them in IMAX, you’ll get to see them fight more.  From his website (via CHUD):

What you will notice that is strikingly different than Transformers 1, is the level of animation detail. The robot characters (42 in all), you really can feel empathy for them. What is also very different is the sheer scale of the movie. We have been very tight holding back much of the best imagery in commercials and trailers.

The way to see this movie is on IMAX. Never before has there been 4k rendered character animation shot on full IMAX 70 mm film. This is a first and the results are stunning. You will see Optimus Prime in a few shots where he is actually perfectly to scale on the IMAX 50 foot tall screens.

For IMAX, I created a slightly longer cut with more robot fighting. Four scenes were shot on IMAX cameras so the screen will fill the full IMAX screen for these scenes.

Haters beware.

Michael

God I love Michael Bay.  “Yo, I know you been tryin na hate on me, but choo won’t be hatin’ when y’all too busy feelin’ empathy for my robot.  Look at him.  You can see da robot sadness in his robot eyes.  So what’s up now?”

After the jump you can watch the official version of the new Transformers 2 trailer (I posted the crappy bootleg version a couple days ago).  It once again illustrates that underwater robots are totally hot this year (see also Terminator Salvation, G.I. Joe).  I also love the context-free Megan Fox introduction shot. 

“Hmm, so what’s my motivation in this scene?”  
“Just pretend you’re getting buttf*cked on a giant motorcycle.”

You complete me, Michael Bay.

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The talks between Jonah Hill and Transformers 2 I reported on last week have apparently broken down, and he won’t play Rough LeBeouf’s conspiracy theorist roommate at Princeton. 

There’s always the option of hiring a J.Hill impersonator a lá College or The Rocker, but I’ve got ten bucks says they hire Kenan Thompson from SNL.  That way you’ve got fat guy, “comic relief”, and racial diversity all in one.  Plus, he’s hilarious.  Did you guys see that one time he dressed up as a woman?  Oh man!