12 Years Later, Hugh Jackman's Best Sci-Fi Movie with Killer Robots Can Get a Sequel

Hugh Jackman might be primarily known as Wolverine — and his upcoming comeback in Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t help — but throughout his career, the actor has played many roles… And some of them are undeservedly overlooked by fans.

In 2011, Hugh Jackman starred in a sci-fi flick with an arguably silly premise which still turned out to be a great movie — and it might spawn a sequel soon!

Real Steel Was Quite a Delight

When you think about sci-fi, you generally imagine something serious, don’t you? There might be some wild technology threatening humankind, AIs going rampant, space exploration and survival, or even aliens involved… But listen. What if instead of all that, the premise was as follows: it’s 2020, and human boxers have been replaced by robot boxers, leaving the former without jobs?

That’s exactly what happens in 2011’s Real Steel. The robot fights have completely taken over, and Hugh Jackman’s character, a former boxer, can barely scrape enough to live. His own robot lost a fateful match, and now he owes a lot of money; but his luck turns around when he reunites with his kid and together, they find a scrapped battle robot with a unique Shadow Function technology.

Real Steel Might Get a Sequel

The premise sounds silly, sure, but the movie itself turned out to be pretty good. On Rotten Tomatoes, Real Steel has a 73% Audience Score supported by its 7.1/10 IMDb score, and at the box office, it performed rather well, too. Now, 12 years after the original film’s premiere, Real Steel might just get a sequel.

At the recent CinemaCon, director Shawn Levy, who’s now working with Hugh Jackman on Deadpool & Wolverine, revealed that they “always talk about Real Steel 2,” leaving a window of opportunity for the sequel. There’s also a Real Steel TV show that’s been stuck in pre-production for the past three years, but at this point, we’ll sooner get a full-blown movie than even the tiniest update on that series.