Jon Favreau To Return To His Indie Roots With Chef

Jon Favreau's directing career has largely been focused on big summer blockbusters over the last few years, directing both the first two Iron Man movies as well as Cowboys and Aliens. But after mixed success in that field, it looks as though he's ready to get back to his independent roots.

Variety has learned that Favreau is now in talks with financiers to write, direct and star in Chef, a new indie comedy of his own invention. While plot details are scarce right now, the story is said to follow an "emotional chef," played by the director, who is doing his very best to run his Los Angeles-based restaurant. As the trade points out, this will be the first time that the filmmaker has put himself in the starring role of one of his own movies since he made his directorial debut with Made in 2001.

While Favreau hasn't directed a movie since his 2011 sci-fi/western mashup - which ended up being both a critical and box office disappointment - he has been keeping busy behind the scenes on the small screen, directing the pilot of NBC's Revolution, as well as an episode in this season of The Office. He's also been doing quite a bit of acting recently, earlier this year starring alongside Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy in Identity Thief. Next week he will be back in theaters reprising his role as Happy Hogan in Shane Black's Iron Man 3 and later this year will be featured in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.