Empire Big Screen: The Real Steel panel with director Shawn Levy

The Hollywood News this evening attended the very last presentation of the day, but indeed the very first from Disney, who have a huge prescence at Empire Big Screen tomorrow (Sunday). This evening’s presentation was for the upcoming release REAL STEEL, which stars Hugh Jackman. It’s kind of like a Robot Wars with massive robots (that I will add, don’t transform). The flick is executive produced by one Steven Spielberg, and directed by NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM director Shawn Levy, who is present tonight to introduce some footage from his movie.

Levy takes to the stage more enthusiastic than anyone I have seen on stage at the Empire Big Screen so far, and this is how it should be – he’s here to sell his movie after all. To kick things off we are given a look at the trailer for the film, and in line with a lot of what we’ve seen at the show, is one that we have seen elsewhere before. Afterwards Levy is back on stage and this time warms up the crowd by turning the tables on them and proceeding to ask them questions. The director offers tickets to the UK premiere which he says is to take place in September. All that they have to do is put up a palm and answer the relatively difficult question that he throws at them. He asks things like, ‘can you name four films inspired by the stories of Richard Matheson (who wrote the original Twilight Zone short story Steel, on which REEL STEEL is based). Additional questions are also asked and three lucky couples will find themselves rubbing shoulders with Hugh Jackman in London in a few weeks.

Next up, Levy introduces our first look at an extended clip from the film. This is the early battle that sees his league bot completely annihilated in an underground robot boxing match compared by the one and only Anthony Mackie. The clip is the scene in full, and we get to see the awesome motion captured robots socking it to one another in a steel chained ring, cheered on by dozens of fans. Hugh Jackman is heavily featured in the scene, and is on camera operating his bot via a headset and futuristic looking hand console.We also see his opponent using a completely different set-up, a little more primative looking but seemingly much more effective.

Next there are more musings from Levy who is so into this appearance that his energy on stage is mirrored in the audience and indeed the three lone journalists (including myself) perched on the upper tier of the Indig02. This is a really late presentation, and for a Saturday evening at a film festivsal where you have the likes of DRIVE and CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE playing over the way to packed audiences at the 02’s CIneworld, it a respectable turn out and with the noise level from the fans reacting to Levy, you’d think that there were three times the amount of people in the room.

We next get a look at another scene from the film, a little later on in the story but still towards the start of the film. We see Jackman and his on-screen son walking through a robot junk yard in the rain searching for parts to build themselves a brand new ring warrior. They shop for parts in the yard when Jackman’s Charlie notices son Max stood on the edge of a sheer drop. Just he tells his son to step away Charlie falls and slides down a sodden cliff face surely to certain death. But hey, this is a Disney movie and what stops him from falling into an abyss is a lone robot arm, sticking out from the ground that Max gets hooked on. It saves him and allows Jackman to tred down the steps to assist him to safety. The robot’s arm of course belongs to Atom, the piece of junk metal that Max and Charlie turn into the ultimate fighting warrior. The scene played well, and showed off more of the relationship between father and son rather than kick ass fight sequences.

Lastly we got to see a very short sizzle reel of footage from behind the scenes featuring boxing consultant Sugar Ray Leonard teaching Hugh Jackman some moves in the ring, and yes ladies, Jackman looks every inch the fighter. Muscles on muscles!

Levy then fielded questions from the crowd, answering things like; how much of a hands on producer was Spielberg (after all, he also exec produced this year’s SUPER 8, COWBOYS & ALIENS and TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, as well as produced THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and directed WAR HORSE). It seems that yes, even though the master is a busy man, he would devote 90 minutes a ‘few times a month’ to the production and be at the end of an email constantly. Levy says that he sent and email asking on whether they should use stools in the boxing ring scenes or not, and within minutes he had a reply saying ‘yes.’ There were also questions on the decision to use 3D. They chose not to in this case as another effects heavy robot movie was also to be released this summer (TF3), so they said no to give this film a seperate identity.

This was a great panel, one of the best of the day after a barrage of disappointments (naming no names), and Levy’ss enthusiasm is infectious. I can’t wait to see the finished product.