Though Jon Favreau is around the set of Iron Man 3 these days to reprise his small role as Tony Stark's assistant Happy Hogan, so far as we've known his real job is prepping Magic Kingdom, the new film that takes the entire Disney theme park and turns it into a family adventure movie. Of course, it's been a year since we heard much of anything about Magic Kingdom, and now we may have evidence that Favreau is stepping away from it for a little while. Variety reports that the director is the frontrunner to handle Jersey Boys, an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical that Graham King is making through his GK Films.
Favreau was born in New York, which gives him ties to both Broadway and nearby Jersey, but otherwise he's a pretty baffling choice for the job-- he was barely born when The Four Seasons, the subjects of the play, were topping the music charts, and he's never directed anything close to a musical in his career. Variety doesn't have any more information about why GK Films wants him on board, or crucially, how he might fit the project in alongside Magic Kingdom-- they don't mention that Disney project at all, which could honestly mean it's dead. Jersey Boys, in the meantime, hired screenwriter John Logan to write it earlier this year, indicating King could be ready to move fast with it and get the stor yof the Four Season on the big screen very soon .
I never saw Jersey Boys on Broadway, and never really understood the appeal frankly, so I'm having a hard time gearing myself up for this one either. But it is nice to see Favreau pick a different genre after his Iron Man movies and the dreadful Cowboys & Aliens; I'd still rather he put together a glossy and perfect comedy like Elf again, but if venturing into musicals is what brings back the creative light we saw on that movie, I'm all for the change of pace.
