Deadpool & Wolverine is one of the biggest movies on the 2024 movie schedule, and in the entirety of the MCU movie timeline, and the film’s box office has been incredible. Clearly, when you put Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and director Shawn Levy together, you get something special, but the same can be true even if Ryan Reynolds isn't directly involved. Over the weekend Real Steel reached a big anniversary, and Levy celebrated with some excellent throwback pics.
The sequel Deadpool and Wolverine marked the third time that Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds have worked together, and it was also the second outing for Levy and Jackman. 13 years ago, the pair teamed up for Real Steel, and if you can’t believe it’s been that long, just look at how young everybody looks in these pictures posted by Shawn Levy on Instagram.
Real Steel starred Hugh Jackman as an ex-boxer who gets involved in the world of professional robot boxing, ultimately teaming up with the son he’s never known to try and build a champion. The Instagram post from Levy shows what both he and Jackman looked like before the stress of the publicity tour for D&W, which I guess only felt like it lasted a decade.
We also get some shots of boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard, who helped teach Jackman the moves he would need to portray a boxer believably on screen.
Real Steel wasn’t necessarily a massive hit when it was released 13 years ago, but both the critical response and the box office were respectable. The movie made $300 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $110 million. The film has since picked up many fans over the years as people have discovered it on streaming. Back in 2020, Real Steel made a splash on Netflix, but as of this writing, is available with a Hulu subscription.
While it’s difficult to know just how popular Real Steel is today, there are certainly those who would love to see a sequel. Shawn Levy has indicated that Real Steel 2 is something that might still happen even though it’s been nearly a decade and a half since the original film. A couple of years ago it appeared a Real Steel series for Disney+ was on the horizon, but we haven't heard much about it recently.
Having said that, Shawn Levy just directed the most successful live-action movie of the year for Disney, so if he wants to talk to them about doing a Real Steel sequel since Disney owns the IP after it purchased Fox, it seems like the director would have some pretty strong bargaining power.
Considering that Levy’s post has a quarter of a million likes, far more than what most of his IG posts see, there’s clearly a devoted fanbase for Real Steel. Perhaps Hugh Jackman and Shawn Levy spent time talking about a sequel while on the set of Deadpool & Wolverine. If they could find a role for Ryan Reynolds I bet any studio would green-light that project right now.
