Disney+ Sequel Series to a $300M Sci-fi Favorite Gets an Update No Fan Wants to Hear

Since its launch, Disney+ has been an avenue for fan-favorite franchises to return in surprising new ways on television. The streaming service not only served as a place for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to expand with new stories, but other library titles like Willow, The Santa Clause, Monsters, Inc., The Mighty Ducks, and Turner & Hooch all received TV show sequels on the platform. Even Star Wars was able to find new life with The Mandalorian, which has become so big it’s headed back to theaters. Those aren’t the end, either, as another major series has been in the works, with the plans of reviving a 14-year-old favorite.

At the time of its release in 2011, Shawn Levy’s Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman, didn’t exactly light the box office on fire. The film brought in just over $85 million at the domestic box office, but fared a little better globally for a near $300 million total. As a result, a sequel never came to fruition, but in the years since Disney+ launched, talk of a Real Steel follow-up in the form of a streaming TV series has been ongoing. Just last year it seemed like the series may finally be coming to fruition, but now, Real Steel heads have just taken a devastating uppercut to the chin.

Real Steel TV Series on Disney+ Gets Bad News From Director

Despite being announced over three years ago, the movement on Real Steel as a Disney+ series has been sporadic at best. Last year, Levy had a promising update about its future, but now it seems like that future is starting to look a little dim. Speaking with Collider, Levy was asked about the status of the show, prompting him to deliver the perhaps bittersweet news about its current situation.

“The status is unclear, and boy, I wish that I felt it was more likely to happen than I’m currently feeling it is,” Levy said. “It’s a hard thing because the movie is so beloved in a way that is out of proportion to however the movie did at the box office, and I just don’t want to touch Real Steel unless I know I’m doing it justice — whether that’s a sequel or a TV show.”

To Levy’s point, at the end of the day, a lot of decisions like this in Hollywood do end up coming down to how the bean counters see the big picture. Real Steel was not a financial success upon release, and the approach at Disney+ has shifted tremendously in the years since a Real Steel follow-up was revealed to the world. Not only have budgets been slashed for big productions on streaming, but the interest in expensive one-off TV shows to bolster the platform’s subscriber numbers has proven to be a strategy that doesn’t work long-term.

At the end of the day, show business puts a lot of weight on the latter word, and a project that carries uncertainty for its return potential is seldom going to get much movement. That said, Levy did deliver the first-ever billion-dollar-grossing R-rated movie in the MCU’s Deadpool & Wolverine, and is poised to send Star Wars into a whole new era with 2027’s Star Wars: Starfighter. After two hits like that, maybe Disney lets the man have his big robot boxing sequel after all.

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