Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction sports film starring Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo and co-produced and directed by Shawn Levy for DreamWorks Pictures. 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 film features a former boxer (Jackman) whose sport is now played by robots. He must build and train his own robot with his son. Real Steel 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 computer-generated robots and animatronics, respectively.

By 2020, human boxers were replaced with robots. In Texas, former boxer Charlie Kenton owns the robot Ambush, until it is destroyed in a fight against a bull belonging to promoter and carnival owner Ricky. Having bet money he did not have with Ricky that Ambush would win, Charlie absconds before Ricky can collect.

After the fight, Charlie learns that his ex-girlfriend died and he must attend a hearing deciding the future of their 11-year-old son Max, whom he has had no contact with since his birth. Max’s maternal aunt Debra and her husband Marvin want full custody. Charlie bargains to cede custody of Max for a large sum of money, and Marvin negotiates that Charlie retains custody of Max for three months while Marvin and Debra go on vacation. Settling into a gym owned by Bailey Tallet, the daughter of Charlie’s former boxing coach, Charlie uses half the money to acquire the once-famous World Robot Boxing (WRB) robot Noisy Boy. He and Max take Noisy Boy to Crash Palace, an underworld boxing arena run by his friend Finn, where Noisy Boy is destroyed against another robot boxer, Midas. While scavenging for replacements in a junkyard, Max discovers Atom, an obsolete, dilapidated but mostly intact sparring robot designed to withstand severe damage, with a rare “shadow function” program, which mirrors and memorizes the handler or opponent’s movements.

At Max’s behest, Charlie pits Atom against another robot, Metro, and is surprisingly victorious. Max integrates Noisy Boy’s voice command hardware with Atom and convinces Charlie to streamline Atom’s movements. Combined with Charlie’s boxing experience and Atom’s shadow function, they cultivate a series of winning streaks that culminate in Charlie being offered to a WRB fight between Atom and the national champion, Twin Cities. The fight starts with Atom on the attack, but Twin Cities easily takes the offensive. Charlie notices a hitch whenever Twin Cities throws a right punch, and he exploits this to win by knockout. Elated by their success, Max challenges the undefeated global champion robot Zeus. After the fight, Ricky and two henchmen attack Charlie for bailing earlier and rob him and Max of their winnings, prompting a defeated and dejected Charlie to return Max to Debra.

When Charlie tries to convince an upset Max that it is better to live without him, Max reveals that all he wanted was for Charlie to fight for him and be there as a father. After Max leaves, Charlie returns to Tallet’s Gym and talks with Bailey. Persuaded by her, Charlie reconciles with Max and convinces Debra to allow Max to witness the fight with Zeus that Charlie has arranged.

As the fight begins, Zeus knocks Atom down with its first punch and dominates the first round, but Atom manages to survive, stunning the audience. Ricky, who bet with Finn on Atom losing within the first round, tries to leave but is cornered by Finn and his bookmakers. As the fight continues, Atom lands multiple punches and withstands further attacks but makes no definitive progress. Late in the fourth round, Atom’s voice-response controls are damaged, forcing Charlie to fight Zeus with Atom’s shadow function. In the fifth and final round, Atom wards off Zeus long enough to deplete its power core, at which point Charlie directs Atom to begin its counterattack against an exhausted Zeus. With Zeus’s programmers unable to compensate, the designer, Tak Mashido, intervenes and controls Zeus manually. Atom gives Zeus a beating, but Zeus narrowly avoids losing by knockout. Zeus wins by decision and remains undefeated, but Mashido’s group is left humiliated by the near-loss and Zeus being critically damaged. Despite the match result, Atom is triumphantly labeled the “People’s Champion” by the cheering crowd as Max and Charlie celebrate.