Jon Favreau To Return as Happy Hogan in Spider-Man: Homecoming

During his recent Fat Man on Batman podcast, Kevin Smith referred to Spider-Man: Homecoming as "a backdoor Iron Man sequel." Now, Robert Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark is even bringing some of his supporting cast along with him when he makes his guest appearance in the Marvel/Sony co-production.

Variety reports that Iron Man director Jon Favreau will reprise his role as Happy Hogan in the forthcoming movie.

"I think Spider-Man made me smile every second the character was on the screen," Favreau said back when Captain America: Civil War was about to hit theaters. "I was so pleased with the tone of the film in general, but those sequences specifically, and I just loved the way they introduced the character. I love the version of Tony Stark I saw, especially in those scenes. As somebody who was part of the beginning of the screen persona of Tony Stark, I thought that this was really impressive and a wonderful expansion of that character."

Favreau, of course, recently directed The Jungle Book for Disney and is still an executive producer on the Avengers movies, even though he hasn't directed one of the Marvel Studios films since Iron Man 2. It was he who spearheaded the unique blend of live action and animation to make The Jungle Book a success.

"That was his idea from the get-go," production designer Christopher Glass recently told me. "'This is going to be animated. We're going to use some techniques from animation, we're going to use some techniques from live action, we're going to combine it, and that's how we're going to make this movie.' And it actually worked!"

Favreau will next be seen onscreen starring opposite his Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn in Term Life.

Spider-Man: Homecoming will feature the teenaged wallcrawler deal with the perils of high school on top of battling supervillains and being a superhero in New York. Tom Holland will reprise his role as Peter Parker, while Michael Keaton has been tapped to play the Vulture, one of several villains who will allegedly appear in the film. Also appearing in the movie is Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier and Tony Revolori. Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei will also reprise their Captain America: Civil War roles as Tony Stark and Aunt May.

The film is currently filming in Atlanta and has an expected release date of July 7, 2017.