Tag: Jon Favreau

Robert Downey Jr. was the big surprise at the Hero Complex Film Festival and his time on stage with Jon Favreau crackled with energy and insight. To get a sense of the long, lively Q&A, we’ve put together a photo gallery with some of the key quotes from the Hollywood on-stage session — but, sorry, we didn’t include Favreau’s “Human Centipede” gag. As you go through the photos, be sure to click the “CAPTIONS ON” option to read the quotes. – Noelene Clark RECENT AND RELATED Ford: Most special-effects films today are soulless “Cowboys” challenge: A new hat for Harrison Jon Favreau hits “Cowboys” campaign trail Beatty, “Dick Tracy” will open Hero Complex festival Downey: “Iron Man 2″ process was “a barfight” Favreau: Why I’m leaving “Iron Man” series “Trek” writers: We’ve broken the sequel story Director: “Captain America” will surprise people Ron ...

EXCLUSIVE It looks like “Cowboys & Aliens” will saddle up in San Diego. Filmmaker Jon Favreau had just walked off stage Sunday night after a sparkling  “Iron Man” reunion at the Hero Complex Film Festival, but his thoughts were already on a far-bigger spotlight moment this summer — Comic-Con International in San Diego. “The worldwide premiere of  ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ will be at Comic-Con,” the director said of his hard-edged sci-fi western that stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell  “And not only are we going to premiere it there, we’re going to find a way to include as many of the fans as possible. I feel like they’ve come out for me, they’ve supported me.” The movie goes into wide release on July 29 with its tale of an alien invasion in six-shooter days of 1873 Arizona. To some ...

The 2011 Hero Complex Film Festival is underway. Here’s a rundown of the day-by-day schedule. There will also be trivia, prizes and some very interesting surprises throughout the four-day program. THURSDAY DICK TRACY: Fourteen-time Oscar nominee Warren Beatty – the very definition of the Hollywood hyphenate as world-famous leading man, an acclaimed director and an elite producer — will be the opening-night guest for the 2011 Hero Complex Film Festival to celebrate his 1990 hit “Dick Tracy“ and talk about the film future of a square-jawed character who is celebrating his 80th anniversary as an iconic crime fighter in American pop culture. Beatty directed  “Dick Tracy,” which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won three. He also starred as the title character, leading a stellar cast that included Al Pacino, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman,  Glenne Headly, Charlie Korsmo, Mandy Patinkin, Dick Van Dyke, William Forsythe, Kathy Bates, Charles Durning, James ...

There’s a special Memorial Day discount of 15% on all single-day tickets for the Hero Complex Film Festival. Go to the event ticket page  and enter in the code “MEMORIAL” to get the special limited price. The festival is June 9-12 at the Chinese 6 theaters in Hollywood. June 9: On opening night it’s a screening of “Dick Tracy” and an on-stage conversation with 14-time Oscar nominee Warren Beatty, who will talk about his plans to revive the character in a new feature film with a young star in the role he himself made famous. There will also be some Dick Tracy trivia and prizes. June 10: Just like last year, Friday is Starfleet night with a screening of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” followed by 2009′s “Star Trek.” On stage it’s Nicholas Meyer, director of the fan-beloved “Khan” (as well as writer ...

Jon Favreau, the filmmaker who ushered in a major new chapter in superhero cinema, will be the closing-night special guest at the 2011 Hero Complex Film Festival and present a double feature of “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2.” Perhaps no one in Hollywood understands the Comic-Con generation of film fans better than Favreau, whose “Iron Man” franchise brought home a billion-dollar success for upstart Marvel Studios and launched the cinematic universe that is now filling in with the films “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” as well as next year’s “Avengers” project. Teaming with star Robert Downey Jr. and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, the director crafted a hero for the 21st century — Tony Stark, the irrepressible, genius tycoon who has no need for a secret identity but does have a stripper pole on his private jet. This summer, Favreau is mapping a ...

Standing in the desert with a six-shooter on his hip, Harrison Ford seemed as surprised as anyone by the fact that he hadn’t starred in a cowboy movie since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. “Back in the hat … yeah, it has been a long time,” Ford said last year as the crew of “Cowboys & Aliens” set up for a chase scene. “Longer than a lot of these guys have been alive, I’m sure.” The crew of director Jon Favreau’s new film can be forgiven if they aren’t familiar with 1979’s “The Frisco Kid,” the Old West comedy that paired Ford as a bank-robbing bandit with Gene Wilder as a Polish rabbi trying to survive the frontier trek to San Francisco. If that doesn’t sound like a pure western, well neither is this latest movie, which arrives in theaters ...

This story ran on the cover of today’s Los Angeles Times Calendar section… The strange, alien hybrid was born in a beige-bland corporate park just off the freeway in San Diego and, after three years and $25 million in development, it still has no name but it does have a mission — to meld a television series and a global online video game in a dynamic way that will allow players around the world to become proxy members of the show’s creative team and digital extras on the weekly episodes. “It’s the holy grail and nothing less than that,” says Dave Howe, the president of NBC Universal’s Syfy channel, which would air the still untitled series beginning next year. “To have a television show and open-ended game that becomes a community, that is something that no one has ever done ...

The great American western rode off into the sunset decades ago but Hollywood is saddling up with cowboy mythology again in unexpected ways with aliens, zombies, video games and, this weekend, a spirited, scrawny lizard named Rango. “There’s something we love about the rise of that silhouette of the gunslinger and the way they make that ultimate choice of reaching for the gun at their hip,” said director Gore Verbinski, whose animated epic “Rango” tips its hat to signature moments from classics such as “High Noon,” “Destry Rides Again” and “Once Upon a Time in the West.” More than a winking tribute, though, “Rango,” which stars Johnny Depp, is part of a posse of reconstituted westerns in pop culture and with more on the way. “Cowboys & Aliens” hits theaters July 29 with a story that lives up to title ...

This is an an excerpt from my front-page story in tomorrow’s Los Angeles Times: The private jet from Van Nuys kicked up pale dust as it landed on an airstrip just outside this state capital, and the passengers crossed the tarmac with the quiet determination of candidates preparing for a rally in a battleground state. “This is our Iowa caucus,” director Jon Favreau said as he climbed into a waiting black SUV with Ron Howard, the two-time Oscar winner who is a producer of Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens,” scheduled to hit theaters July 29. “This is like the primary. Our election night is that opening weekend this summer.” Favreau, Howard and their team didn’t fly 1,400 miles to meet with foreign investors, movie exhibitors or a panel of top film critics. Their destination was a scruffy little theater in a ...

EXCLUSIVE Jon Favreau said Tuesday that he is walking away from the billion-dollar ”Iron Man” franchise and will join Guillermo del Toro and David Fincher as part of a next wave of filmmakers making live-action feature films rooted in the imagery of Disney theme parks and classic characters. Favreau is set to direct “Magic Kingdom,” which the 44-year-old filmmaker described as a family fantasy adventure that will tap into the vintage Disney creations that “loomed so large in the imagination” of his generation. Favreau said that Fincher (expected by many to be a strong Oscar contender for “The Social Network“) will direct the studio’s ”20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” a Jules Verne bookshelf classic that is closely associated with Disney after the landmark 1954 film and the submarine theme-park ride, and Disney confirmed that to be the case. Del Toro had already been announced as director of a new “Haunted Mansion” film. ...