‘Real Steel’ director: Remote-control robots made scenes ‘magic’

 
In an era when most movie effects are computer-generated, creating real, remote-controlled robots was “the most central decision” for “Real Steel,” director Shawn Levy told the audience at Monday’s early IMAX screening of the film.
“In this moment, you can do everything digitally, so most movies just do everything digitally,” Levy said at the screening, hosted by Hero Complex’s Geoff Boucher. “It’s quicker. It’s often cheaper. So this notion of building real, full-scale, remote-controlled robots is kind of heresy now because it’s unnecessary. But it’s not unnecessary if you consider that you are going to get a visual reality and a reality to the performances that is incomparable.”
Evangeline Lilly, who starred opposite Hugh Jackman in the robot-boxing film, which opens this weekend, praised Levy and the filmmaking team, saying the experience of acting with a real robot was considerably different than green-screen work on her other projects.
“I’ve worked with a very, very invisible smoke monster for a very long time,” she joked about her role on “Lost.”