Favreau said he enjoyed staying involved as Happy Hogan and added of the MCU, “I’m still very close with all those people. But the nature of my relationship changed because it went from me being with a small group, creating a story, to something that was going to fit into something much bigger.”
I spoke to Favreau about the first “Iron Man” film during a junket for 2008’s “Wild West Comedy Show” before the MCU film even came out. After the chat, he followed me out of the room to tell me that he was surprised I (or anyone else) remembered who Iron Man was. The character wasn’t really in the zeitgeist back then. No one knew what would happen with the film, and it’s unlikely that many people could have envisioned what we have now. Back then, it was an experiment. The team was much smaller, as he told Empire. That seems to be what he’s more comfortable with. He told the publication:
“Different people have different things that they’re good at. And for me, there’s a certain scale that I’m most comfortable in. What’s nice about ‘The Mandalorian’ is that I’m able to keep it at the scale that my creative process can accommodate. I love this form of storytelling, where you can come in, tell a story, and it fits into a longer thread.”
It’s obviously worked beautifully, staying where he feels he can work best. “The Mandalorian” fits seamlessly into the “Star Wars” universe. When we watch the bigger films again, there is always an awareness now about how the big events affect the everyday person, giving it more depth.
