Real Steel was released well over a decade at this point, but fans of the sci-fi boxing movie are still campaigning for a sequel. One of those fans is Anthony Mackie, who actually starred alongside Hugh Jackman and Evangeline Lilly in the 2011 movie.
During an interview with Inverse, Anthony Mackie mentioned that he actually calls Real Steel director Shawn Levy once or twice a year to push for a sequel. That’s commitment. “It was supposed to be a trilogy,” Mackie said. “It was supposed to be three or four movies together.“
Real Steel starred Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when robots took over the ring. When he hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goto) to build and train a championship contender. Anthony Mackie played Finn, a friend of Charlie’s who owns an underground robot boxing arena.
While there doesn’t seem to be a lot of movement on the Real Steel sequel, it was announced last year that a TV series was in the works for Disney+. As far as a big-screen sequel goes, Shawn Levy has frequently said that he wouldn’t want to move ahead unless he was sure he could make it better than the first. That said, he admitted to our own JimmyO two years ago that it’s the one project fans bring up the most. “You know, it’s amazing and so awesome to Hugh [Jackman] and me,” Levy said. “We literally spoke about this yesterday. We’re coming up on ten years on Real Steel, and still not a week goes by where I get asked at least once – and usually more than once – in real life, or an interview, or on social media, ‘Sequel? Sequel?’ I’ve gotten so used to answering that question that now I find myself with Hugh saying, ‘Well, should we just do it?’ We love that movie as much as our fans love that movie. So we’ll see about that.“
Anthony Mackie recently wrapped production on Captain America: Brave New World, which is slated to hit theaters on July 26, 2024.
Are you still holding out hope for a Real Steel sequel?