HUGH JACKMAN IS LOOKING FOR A BOY

    Down goes Frazbot! Down goes Frazbot!

DreamWorks and director Shawn Levy still haven’t found the right actor to play Hugh Jackman’s son in Real Steel, a movie about robots boxing in the future (really).  They’ve started an open casting call for boys aged 10 to 14, and gave away what appears to be the entire story arc of the movie:

[Max is] 10-14 years old. He’s a street-smart, tough, charming kid with a hard, untrusting outer shell which hides a warm enthusiastic spirit. [Ed.- I bet he can breakdance like mad crazy, yo.]  A complicated, strong-willed and resourceful boy, Max is the product of a broken home, and he becomes the focus of a child custody hearing following the untimely death of his mother. [Ed.- Hollywood Rule #26: every child has to have at least one dead parent.] Though his wealthy aunt and uncle would like full custody, his absentee father (Charlie, a downcast former boxer-turned-trainer of ‘boxing robots’) makes a side deal with the uncle to look after Max for several months in exchange for much needed cash. Max hits the road with his reluctant dad and uses his computer skills and ingenuity to create a series of boxing robots that perform well enough to get them back on track and, ultimately, lead to a bond between father and son that is unshakeable and enduring. [realsteelcasting via SciFiWire]

We could all learn a valuable lesson from this, namely, make your relatives bribe you to raise your own children.  Also, plucky little kids can build robots better than adults with advanced degrees and decades of experience can.  If your kids aren’t building a sentient, talking robot schnauzer in your living room right now, there must be something wrong with them.  You should sell them or something.

I asked Hugh Jackman how a boxer would acquire the computer programming skills to “train” a robot, but I don’t think he understood the question:

[Banner pic by Eric Joyner, explanation of "I'm a shark" here, thanks to ONTD for the idea]