Jon Favreau gushes over Magic Kingdom, avoids Iron Man 3 scorn

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Jon Favreau’s sudden departure from the Iron Man franchise has been a stunner to many, and the reasoning behind his decision has been hotly debated since yesterday. We saw an anonymously sourced report from ComicBookMovie which claimed it went down because IRON MAN 2’s shittiness (as a result of studio interference) had caused his friendship with Downey Jr. to dissolve, pointing to the fact the two rarely did press together for the film, and why Downey left Favreau’s COWBOYS AND ALIENS and Favreau turned down AVENGERS.

But in a new interview with the LA Times, Favreau mentions none of that, instead extolling the virtues of MAGIC KINGDOM, his new next film based on the Disney theme park, which above all else, isn’t a superhero franchise people have massive expectations for.

The main impulse was to “find something that lights a fire” inside of him as a filmmaker and gives him a chance to “blow people away, which is easier to do with a project that isn’t loaded with built-in expectations.”

“Between the theme parks and the movies, the Disney iconography was probably the first set of archetypes that I was exposed to,” Favreau said of his youth in Flushing, N.Y. “Walt was able to expose me as a child to the full array of emotions, including fear and sorrow. Those movies and attractions haunted my dreams and made a deep impression on me as a child. When I first heard about the [‘Magic Kingdom’ film] project, I was on my way to visit Disneyland with my family. I took notes and had no problem filling a book with all the ideas that this concept offered, even on first blush. Since then, I was lucky enough to be given a tour of Imagineering by Tony Baxter,who knows just about everything there is to know about Disneyland. He pulled original concept art from the archives for me and exposed me to Walt’s original vision.”

From what I can gather, this is something along the lines of “everything in the Disney park comes alive at night” so NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM with licensed characters I guess. But the man did good work with his last kids’ film ELF, so hopefully he can create something memorable here.

I do believe that a fallout with both Kevin Feige and subsequently Downey Jr. is probably his main reason for departure, but I don’t blame him for not publically commenting on that and burning bridges.

What do you think of the whole situation?