First Image of Hugh Jackman in Real Steal Reveals Boxing Robot

Even for the guy who played Wolverine, saying the following quote with a straight face had to be a bit tough for Hugh Jackman. "The heart of the story is this father and son relationship and in comes this junkyard robot called Atom that the kid's in love with. I abandoned the kid pretty much at birth. But we come together because the boy's mother has died. (Ed. note: Um, spoiler alert, Hugh!) We have a lot of distance to make up. It's through this mutual interest in robot boxing that they find a way to come together and form a bond." Yep, you read that right: In his latest blockbuster, Real Steel -- which just started filming yesterday -- Jackman deals with boxing robots. After the jump, check out the first image from the film and find out why this boxing robot film is different.

Okay, that does look kinda cool. And that probably has to do with the fact that it's real. Sort of. Director Shawn Levy -- at the behest of executive producer Steven Spielberg -- has created 19 animatronic robots, as tall as eight feet in height. "There are some things only visual effects can pull off. But when you give an actor a real thing, in this case a real 8-foot-tall machine, to interact with and do dialogue opposite, you get a more grounded reality to the performance." Amen. Maybe there's hope for Indiana Jones 5 just yet.

· In Hugh Jackman's 'Real Steel,' the robot titans go pugilistic [USA Today via Vulture]