Summer may be over, but the fall season still holds plenty of hot movies worth looking forward to. We're celebrating the coming months of fantastic films all week long with MTV News' Fall Movie Preview, starting with a sports drama mixed with a sci-fi twist:
"Real Steel," the robot boxing movie starring "Wolverine" leading man Hugh Jackman and "Lost" babe Evangeline Lilly, which opens on October 7.
ComingSoon.net has your exclusive first look at four bus shelter posters for director Shawn Levy's Real Steel, opening in theaters and IMAX on October 7 and starring Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Durand.
A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future, where the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech, Real Steel stars Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next. When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.
Not only was his Wolverine role pivotal to the success of the film based on comic-book characters, it was his major-motion-picture debut.
Despite the intense pressure, the jet-lagged Aussie was gracious, forthcoming and generous with his time during an on-set interview in his trailer.
Twenty movies later, Jackman was recently reminded of the encounter at a downtown Toronto hotel, while promoting his latest movie, Real Steel, which opens Oct. 7.
As the 42-year-old sits in his hotel suite chair, he can't resist having a little fun with his nice-guy reputation, then and now.
"OK, let's get this over with," said Jackman, pretending to be terse. "You've got two minutes."
Actually, he's always had time for fans and reporters, especially when he's enthusiastic about a project such as Real Steel.
Loosely based on a Richard Matheson story and a 1960s Twilight Zone TV episode, the Shawn Levy-directed film is a more optimistic, near-future yarn about eight-foot robots who replace human boxers in the ring.
Jackman plays Charlie, an ex-pugilist turned small-time promoter, who can't catch a break, nor manage a decent robot boxer.
Charlie's life gets more complicated when he decides to hook up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) for the summer. Adding to his dilemma is a former girlfriend (Evangeline Lilly), who starts questioning Charlie's decisions, while a nasty carnival operator (Kevin Durand) looks for revenge and a debt owed. That's even as Charlie and Max discover a 'bot that might win them the championship.
While the movie relies on modern special effects to enhance the robot battles, Jackman thinks the story's impact comes from the classic father-son theme.
"Right from the beginning, Shawn (Levy) and I were like, 'We know it's going to look amazing, and the stuff is difficult to do, and it's tempting to go bigger and bolder,'" Jackman said. "But the essence has to be that relationship."
Jackman credits his young, Toronto-based counterpart, Goyo, who plays the precocious kid. "We really worked well together," said Jackman. "He is a natural, and you never catch him acting."
Praise must go to Jackman, too. He whipped himself into shape - as he usually does - to come across as a convincing former boxer. And he throws some decent jabs, hooks and upper cuts in a few sequences, as well. Mind you, he had world-champ boxer Sugar Ray Leonard training him, which provided Jackman with a different kind of motivation.
After one particular workout, "Sugar Ray said to me, 'You know my name is on this movie.' I said, 'I know. Thanks, mate.' He goes, 'No, I mean, don't make me look bad.'"
Playing Charlie like a not-so-aware boxer is all Jackman nuance, however.
"From the beginning, I automatically felt for Charlie," the actor said. "I know a few Charlie types, and the reason I feel for them is that I can look back on my life, where there have been moments where things might have gone the other way."
Wait a minute: He's multi-talented Hugh Jackman. And Wolverine is his franchise.
"Look at hosting the Oscars," he said, referring to his 2009 MC duties. "I felt that it went well for me (he won an Emmy), but if I had bombed, which was possible, I would have lost confidence real quickly."
It sounds like fans have more belief in him than he does. "Everything is like stepping stones," he said. "And I've seen people I admire falter. We're all vulnerable."
Yet he had no doubts when he accepted the demanding headliner part in the newest film remake of Les Miserables.
"Yeah, I am playing Jean Valjean opposite Russell Crowe (Inspector Javert), and Tom Hooper is directing it," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "We're shooting in London in the first half of next year."
That caused the delay of his second Wolverine flick, The Wolverine, which was to start up in the fall and will now begin filming next June.
"Yeah, we swapped 'em," he said of both studio pictures, as if it were no big deal.
So Jackman must have been joking about his professional anxieties and his fear of failure - or not.
"July 26, 1996," he said of a job he'll never forget. "I had a panic attack the night before."
He had booked a gig to sing the Australian national anthem in front of 100,000 competitive Australian and New Zealand rugby fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. And he still remembers the day clearly.
"I got introduced as star of stage and screen, and I'd been in one TV show and one musical at the time," he recalled. "I got resoundingly booed by 30,000 New Zealanders before I started.
"I had seen people booed off when they sang (the anthem) badly, and never work again."
As we know, Jackman was not one of them. And, for the record, he finished his duties without incident, but the memory serves him well as a 'what if?' moment.
"I still feel like whatever you throw at me is not going to be as bad as that."
I understand sometimes putting faith in certain franchises that will likely succeed, even before they're out. It's a safe bet properties like GREEN LANTERN or CAPTAIN AMERICA will probably warrant sequels, but REAL STEEL? Really?
But that's just what's happening. Writer of the original, John Gatins has been commissioned by Dreamworks to start work on a sequel. I presume that means they're very impressed with what they've seen so far, and have faith it can capitalize on the "robots crashing into each other" trend made hugely profitable by the TRANSFORMERS series.
