Movies - TV
Iron Man & Elf Share One Food-Related Easter Egg According To Jon Favreau
By JOE ROBERTS
Jon Favreau made a point of bringing what he termed ‘plausibility’ to his films, and one way he achieved this was through his trademark references to protagonists’ favorite foods.
In-between the staple (and arguably implausible) high-tech superhero shenanigans, Favreau fleshed out his characters by adding smaller, character-focused, idiosyncratic elements.
In Marvel Cinematic Universe’s inaugural “Iron Man” in 2008, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) presents Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) with a Ray's Pizza box brought back from New York.
This example of Favreau’s character-focused elements links back to 2003’s “Elf,” where Santa (Ed Asner) tells Will Ferrell's Buddy how to find the original Ray's Pizza in New York.
Not least in his 2014 movie “Chef” and throughout his filmography, Favreau’s passion for gastronomy was clear. He explained the food aspect to the “Dinner Party Download” podcast:
“People are constantly eating [in my movies]. In 'Elf' I added [...] him stuffing his face [...]. And then in 'Iron Man,' he's talking about flying Ray's Pizza in from New York.”
Favreau’s pizza Easter eggs are likely an echo of his New York upbringing, when, for his family, “Food was always a lubricant for conversation and [...] brought people together.”