You might’ve wondered what happend to the Magic Kingdom movie Disney hired Jon Favreau to direct a couple years ago. Well, Crave Online caught up with the actor/director to talk about his work on NBC’s upcoming sci-fi show Revolution and managed to shift the conversation over to the dormant Mouse House project.
Turns out that Magic Kingdom is still kicking, and the reason Favreau has been taking his sweet time is because he’s been working extensively with Pixar.
Here’s what he had to say:
“What we’ve been doing is writing a script, going up to Pixar, meeting with the brain trust, coming back down, bringing on artists, story editors and putting it together as though it were an animated film so that by the time we actually film it, we’ll have a rock solid story … I don’t want to rush anything. I want this thing to be perfect. I want it to be one shot one kill, like a sniper. I want to make sure this movie’s right in the crosshairs that we can really knock it out of the park so to speak.”
The film has previously been described as Night at the Museum meets Disney, with the famous amusement park’s characters and attractions coming to life. Favreau also expanded on the story, confirming more details.
“It’s going to be a family in the park. It’s an alternate reality version of the park that they get launched into. So much of it is just how it weaves together as a tapestry and what the visuals look like in creating this rich world. It’s informed by everything that I remember and know about the park from going there since I was a small child.”
Michael Chabon, who worked with Disney on John Carter and the canceled Order of the Seven, was hired to write the script last summer, but it’s unclear as to whether he is still part of the creative process.
Given the unoriginal nature of the story and that this will certainly be a family film, news of working with Pixar has to be considered a positive. Rather than rush the film and prey off its bankable concept, Favreau and co. will let it mature with the help of the best in the business.
It could, therefore, be quite awhile before we see Magic Kingdom. That would explain why Favreau recently agreed to direct the film adaptation of the musical Jersey Boys and just yesterday committed to a role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Let’s hope he doesn’t get too busy though, now that Pixar is involved I’m starting to get excited about this project.