Real Steel
2011 film by Shawn Levy
Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction sports film starring Hugh Jackman. Produced and directed by Shawn Levy, the film is based on the short story "Steel", written by Richard Matheson, which was originally published in the May 1956 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later adapted into a 1963 Twilight Zone episode. The story features a down-on-his-luck former boxer (Jackman), whose sport is now played by robots, as he and his son (Dakota Goyo) find an abandoned robot and train it to be a promising fighter. Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, and Kevin Durand star in supporting roles.
The film was in development for several years before production began on June 24, 2010. Filming took place primarily in the U.S. state of Michigan. Animatronic robots were built for the film, and motion capture technology was used to depict the rodeo brawling of the robots.
Real Steel was distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the Touchstone Pictures label in the United States on October 7, 2011. Although the film was a box-office bomb in the United States, it grossed nearly $300 million at the box office internationally. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances and visual effects, but criticized the formulaic plot.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Real Steel” is 2011 film by Shawn Levy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Real, Steel and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “2011 film by Shawn Levy” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q261759. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 1956, 1963 and 2010.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Real Steel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.