Jon Favreau Movies Spotlight

Explore The Jungle Book helmer’s full filmography with our Jon Favreau Movies Spotlight

The latest trailer for Jon Favreau‘s live-action The Jungle Book dropped during the Super Bowl, giving us a quick first look on his imaginative take in bringing the Disney animated classic to life. We got to see more of the tone shift from dark to action packed and fun, a balance well demonstrated in a lot of prior Jon Favreau movies.

Just like when he ushered in what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron-Man or when he created a fun modern day holiday favorite with Elf, Favreau is once again breaking new grounds with The Jungle Book. The collaboration with Disney on the adaptation of their classic is poised to bring live-action acting and immersive CGI digital shooting to new heights.

In celebration of The Jungle Book hitting theaters on April 15, we’ve put together a round-up of essential Jon Favreau movies. Let us know your favorites in the comments below!

Jon Favreau Movies: Made (2001)

In his directorial film debut, Jon Favreau reunited with Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn for a buddy movie about disorganized crime. The crime caper’s story relied on the chemistry between the two friends. Although it served as a follow-up to Swingers in spirit, the film didn’t quite receive the same reception. Some of the strengths of Made came from Favreau’s ability to keep a fast pace while capturing great moment’s of banter between himself and Vaughn.

Jon Favreau Movies: Elf (2003)

Elf is considerably regarded as Favreau’s first breakthrough film. The modern holiday classic centers around a man, played by Will Ferrell, who was raised as an elf since infancy and finds out that he isn’t, in fact, an elf. His elf father (Bob Newhart) reveals to him the identity of his real father (James Caan) and sends him to New York to find him. Ferrell shined in the role of Buddy the elf with effervescent innocence and the right amount of slapstick. The performance Favreau captured created a new holiday icon that is difficult to imagine anyone else playing, much like another future big screen icon he’d later cast. Quotes from the film have cemented themselves as pop culture references during the holidays. It’s hard to not tell mall Santas that they sit on a throne of lies now. With Elf, Favreau continued to show his strength with keeping a great pace while jokes landed and propelled the story forward. 

Jon Favreau Movies: Zathura (2005)

Favreau’s second family feature was 2005’s Zathura, based on the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg. The film centered on two young brothers (Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo) who get thrust into an intergalactic adventure which takes them, their older sister and home into the depths of space when they decide to play a mechanical board game that mysteriously shows up. The action and adventure sequences in the film made for a solid feature and marks the first time Favreau worked with kids as his leads. 

Jon Favreau Movies: Iron Man (2008)

This is the movie that would go on to set in motion what we now know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and really put Favreau on the map as a director. Iron Man lay the foundation for all superhero movies to come by setting the bar with one of Marvel’s most iconic anti-heroes: genius, billionaire playboy and philanthropist Tony Stark. He also made the audacious choice to cast Robert Downey Jr., because who better to be Stark, a figure who fights his inner demons and real ones in the public eye, than someone who has experienced similar past? This is Favreau’s keen knack of casting an actor for a role meant for only them. Together they crafted the fascinating arc of the self-involved rich industrialist who didn’t care about consequences but is driven to right his own wrongs after realizing his responsibility for warfare in his name. He’s forced to create a new super-weapon: the Iron-Man suit after seeing firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of his own tech. That culminating moment is what rockets Stark’s path to superhero-dom. The film showcased Favreau’s ability to make a fun, fast-paced, action-adventure movie to reach commercial mass appeal. It also started the craze for after-credits scenes with Samuel L. Jackson appearing as Nick Fury for the first time to recruit Stark for a top secret initiative.

Jon Favreau Movies: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Considered the weakest of the Iron Man films, the sequel follows Tony Stark dealing with the aftermath of revealing his identity as Iron-Man and taking accountability for his past. Favreau would go on to describe the film’s shortcomings to the pressure of shooting back to back and Marvel Studios’ expectations of carrying a franchise… the kinks of which are still not entirely ironed out. Even so, Iron Man 2 is still considered a decent sequel that went on to propel the MCU by sowing the seeds of future films. It introduced Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and endeared audiences with the original character of Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who served as a proxy to fans as he appeared in the other Marvel films. Despite the wrinkles in the script, RDJ’s Tony Stark still went on to elevate the film and keep interest in the character’s arc leading up to The Avengers. 

Jon Favreau Movies: Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Or… Jon Favreau being put in the same box. Not even having Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in this big budget sci-fi western could hold it together. But that’s not anyone’s fault in particular other than a big studio trying to ring out the magic that made Iron Man work out of a drained Favreau with a flimsy script (Damon Lindeloff and Roberto Orci, to name a few of the scribes). Present were undecided whacked-out tonal shifts within the genre mash-up and gone were all of Favreau’s strengths like humor combined with action adventure. It just left a bad taste in your mouth.

Jon Favreau Movies: Chef (2014)

Our boy got his groove back by going back to basics. Chef is Favreau’s most personal movie and a return to form as a writer, director and lead. In it, he plays a disenchanted chef burnt out on making the same dish over and over again and can no longer find the beauty in his own artistic expression through cooking. The film is so meta in that it’s about a guy who goes on the road with a food truck to dish out entrees he’s passionate about while being Favreau’s way of giving his audience a small film he was very passionate about. Chef’s charm came from it’s humor, the bond between the characters and being relatable to anyone. Outside of directing, Favreau has made a career of playing an everyman in films and usually serves as part of an ensemble like in Couples Retreat or side character in his Iron Man films. In Chef he re-imagines the everyman and brings to the forefront the universal struggle we all face of keeping our integrity in our field of work with his incredibly honest performance. In this way, the masterful storytelling in Chef served to make it one of Favreau’s greatest films as an actor,writer and director.

(Photo credit: Drew Altizer / WENN.com)