Stranger Things Producer Developing Real Steel Series for Disney+

Director Shawn Levy has always been great when it comes to kid-friendly adventure genre, from Night at the Museum to Free Guy, and now it looks like he’s coming back to another kid-focused action franchise to bring to Disney+.

As per Variety, Levy is now in early development for a Real Steel series for Disney+. It’s not clear how the show is going to relate to the 2011 movie, but seeing as that film is a success, it would be great if they can establish that everything takes place in the same timeline.

Based on Steel by Richard Matheson, Real Steel followed the story of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) a retired former boxer in the near future. Since the sport of boxing has been taken over by giant robots instead of humans, Charlie hones his old skills on an old training bot and turns him into one of the most formidable fighters in the scene.

The film is essentially a beefed-up “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” adaptation, and had earned $300 million out of its $110 million budget. Besides Jackman, the movie also starred Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, and young Thor actor Dakota Goyo.

With the concept of giant fighting robots, it’s very likely that this Real Steel series will require a lot of CGI. We don’t know how Disney will decide to approach the project, but I think they could actually save more if they just turned this into an exclusive movie. Otherwise, we could be looking at episodes with minimal CG. Despite the advances in filmmaking, shows like Mandalorian as well as Marvel series like WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier still need to balance their CG budget throughout the season.

Then again, it depends on the storytelling. If Levy can make something like Stranger Things work, then I’m interested to see how he can handle Real Steel more than a decade since the first movie came out.

No release date has been set for Disney+’s Real Steel series.