Disney CEO Bob Iger Likens Jon Favreau to George Lucas
Out of everything that Lucasfilm has produced since it was purchased by Disney, The Mandalorian is the project that carries the spirit of George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy the most. I loved this series so much!
Creator Jon Favreau obviously has a great understanding of Star Wars and its lore. Not only that, he likes to play around with new and innovative technology with the projects he develops. During a recent interview on The Star Wars Show, Disney CEO Bob Iger discussed Favreau and likened him to George Lucas and explined how they are both visionary and innovative storytellers. Iger said that Disney should embrace technology for two primary reasons, both core values fulfilled by Disney+ and premiere series The Mandalorian:
“One, use it to make the product and the stories that you tell more compelling to the audience. I can’t think of a better example of someone who did that than George Lucas, for instance, using technology to tell a better story. And that’s obviously what we saw in 1977, when we got to see the first Star Wars film. The second was, let’s use technology to distribute our content to people in not only more effective ways, but more compelling ways for them, more satisfying ways for them. I think Disney+ speaks great volumes about both of those.”
He went on to talk about Favreau and how Disney has “great faith” in him and also compare him to Lucas saying:
“First of all, we have great faith in Jon. Both as a storyteller, but also as a storyteller like George that knows how to use technology for the good of his stories, and the good of the audience that will ultimately hear or see the stories. We had seen that in Jungle Book, which he remade for us, which I thought was brilliant in so many different ways. We certainly saw that in Lion King, which was breakthrough in many ways.”
Iger went on to share:
“And so when Jon pitched the idea of a Star Wars series, we immediately understood not only did we have a great storyteller, but we had a storyteller that was going to continue to write new rules of sorts or mine new territory in terms of how he was going to use technology to tell great stories that felt fresh, that felt important, that felt big, that took people to new places and created new experiences, and so it was a very easy decision for us to make.”
That also obviously included the involvement of Dave Filoni, who Iger also mentions. What these two guys did with the first season of The Mandalorian was spectacular! I would love to see Favreau and Filoni have a hand in the future films that are made as well. They’ve proved they are the best assets that Lucasfilm has for the franchise right now, and Disney needs to take advantage of that.
It’s previously been reported that Favreau will play a big role in the future of the Star Wars films, so that’s good to know!