Given that the film doesn’t even have a release date yet, and that it just started rolling cameras in Wilmington, North Carolina, a few months back, it’s more than a little odd to be seeing images from Max Steel, a live-action adaptation of the Mattel action toy and its accompanying Disney XD series, this early on. Regardless, we’re not complaining. The first shots from the movie look quite intriguing, and I’ll be interested to see more as production continues.
Max Steel will star Ben Winchell (Disney’s A.N.T. Farm, SundanceTV’s The Red Road) as (according to Moviefone, which debuted the pics) “16-year-old Max, who is going through a particularly uncomfortable bout of puberty: it seems he has hidden powers that when combined with an extraterrestrial friend, Steel, (hence the title), produce the universe’s most powerful energy. The two join forces to become super hero Max Steel, who has a very cool looking robo-suit.”
Eventually, Max Steel becomes a hero bent on saving the world from mysterious forces of evil, but this film looks to be an origin story. It seems clear that Open Road is eying a potential franchise with the movie, but whether audiences will take to Max Steel remains to be seen. As far as toy adaptations go, for every Transformers, there’s a Battleship, we know, and Max Steel doesn’t have the built-in fanbase of either of those properties.
In addition to Winchell, Max Steel features Andy Garcia, Maria Bello and Ana Villafañe. As mentioned above, the film, which was directed by Stewart Hendler (Sorority Row) and penned by Christopher Yost (Thor: The Dark World), is currently without a release date, but Open Road is planning to push it into theaters at some point in 2015.
Are you interested in Max Steel, or have these images not convinced you that the movie will be anything special? Let us know below!
