Jon Favreau is a successful actor, but his biggest hits have come behind the camera. He directed the first Iron Man movie back in 2008, effectively kicking off the tremendously successful Marvel Cinematic Universe. More recently, he’s the showrunner behind The Mandalorian, the live-action Star Wars series that was the first big original hit for streaming service Disney+.
But that wasn’t a sure thing. There had never been a live-action Star Wars show before The Mandalorian, and no one knew if it would take off. But once it did, Favreau cashed in, at least according to a new report from The Puck. “Favreau originally signed on to do just one season of The Mandalorian, so when it became Disney+’s signature series, he extracted an insane deal to continue, with all kinds of bonuses and incentives for writing or directing individual episodes,” writes Matthew Belloni.
This is significant because Disney has a history of not being overly generous with its creatives, the logic being that people are willing to work with the studio for less than they might make otherwise because of its reputation and name recognition. But The Mandalorian was such a hit that it gave Favreau some leverage.
The Mandalorian season 3
…but not too much leverage. Although a rep for Favreau declines to comment, The Puck speculates that even though Favreau’s new deal included things like bonuses and incentives, he doesn’t get a cut of merchandising revenue, which is where the real money is made. If you even got 1% of profits from the share of Baby Yoda tee-shirts, plushies and other swag, you’d never have to think about working again.
As for when we’ll see more episodes of The Mandalorian, it’s uncertain. The last proper season of the show aired in 2020, although Din Djarin and Baby Yoda factored so prominently into last year’s The Book of Boba Fett that it was basically a short new season. Hopefully season 3 will be along before the end of this year.
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h/t ComicBook.com