The Franchise Thinks Scorsese Was Right about Superhero Movies

Imagine the elevator pitch for HBO’s new series, The Franchise: Let’s do to superhero movies what Veep did to politics. In other words, ruthlessly skewer them, stripping away pomp and glamor so that the cynicism and hypocrisy are laid bare. Bitching, shit talking, backbiting—all are delivered at such rapid-fire speed that it’s almost impossible to absorb all the witty dialogue. Plot lines unfold like rolling calamities, stupid blunders accelerating into expensive disasters.

It makes sense that this eight-part comedy would bear a resemblance to Veep, since it comes from Veep creator Armando Iannucci and Veep/Succession writer Jon Brown, as well as director Sam Mendes. And superhero movies have enough of a hold on pop culture to make them a rich target. If you happen to be one of the people who thinks comic book dominance has ruined movies, there’s the buzz of thinking the people who make them are miserable, and maybe even hate the resulting product as much as you do.

The Franchise plunges us into the chaotic production of Tecto: Eye of the Storm, a second-division franchise movie from the Marvel-esque Maximum Studios. Tecto’s title character is played by Adam (Billy Magnussen), a needy, insecure former sitcom actor who yearns to be taken seriously; his costar Peter (Richard E. Grant), is a serious thesp, who enjoys earning a blockbuster paycheck and torturing Adam—not necessarily in that order. The real hero of the series, though, is the wonderful Himesh Patel as first assistant director Daniel. It’s his job to wrangle the bloated egos; distract studio executives; tamp down his feelings for the new producer, former girlfriend Anita (Aya Cash); humor German director Eric (Daniel Brühl), who fancies himself an auteur; and generally keep the shoot from exploding like the fireball stunt they stage in the movie.

Within the first two minutes of the first episode, in an extended tracking shot, Daniel has to calm an extra in a fish-person costume who’s in a panic spiral, find out if the boom operator is drunk, stop Peter from finishing an offensive joke, hang up on his mother, and ascertain whether the studio is on fire. He also has to break in new hire Dag (Lolly Adefope), a font of snark who is oblivious to the set’s rules and hierarchies. She regularly pipes up with lines that seem to echo the beliefs of the show’s writers. “Have you ever thought: Am I killing cinema?” she asks Daniel during one frenzied lunch break. “What if this isn’t a dream factory? What if it is an abattoir and we all have blood on our hands?”

Daniel, on the other hand, is a true believer whose father read him Tecto comic books as a kid. He knows what is canonical and exactly how he’d bring the vision to life if he ever got the chance to direct. Instead, he lives in a daily purgatory, watching his beloved stories mangled by the franchise process. It’s a corporate tug of war in which a studio god (an unseen Kevin Feige–type named Shane) and bullying executive Pat (Darren Goldstein) shower them with shit from above. The studio has no qualms about ordering the director to insert Chinese tractors into a random scene for product placement reasons, or to expand the sole female character’s role to distract critics (“the clitterati,” as Pat calls them), who’ve accused the studio of sexism after their one all-female film in the franchise has gone down in flames.

“You want me to woman the woman problem?” Anita asks. “It’s your movie, your choice,” Pat quips, coopting the reproductive rights slogan, while making it clear there’s no choice at all. The actress who plays that sole female character in the movie, Quinn (Katherine Waterston), is not at all thrilled to have her role extended, since she’s already been doused with hatred from the franchise’s fandom. (“The militant wing of our base is vanishingly small,” Anita blandly assures her.) Bound by a contract, Quinn gets back into costume.

I marveled at the quick-fire, screwball interactions between the fantastic ensemble of irritants, particularly the increasingly unraveled Eric and his adoring assistant, Steph (Jessica Hynes). But after watching all eight episodes, I found myself losing steam, much like the poor crew stuck on the studio lot for the 150th day of production. One problem is that most of the targets of The Franchise aren’t new: the conversation about sexism and toxic fandoms is long-running, and many movie fans know that Marvel took a step back last year, acknowledging superhero sequel overload. Then there’s Martin Scorsese’s contempt for superhero movies, which becomes a running riff in the series. It has been so thoroughly covered that only a hermit without internet access doesn’t have an opinion on it. The Franchise leaves us in little doubt that the writers agree with Scorsese, and this disdain takes some of the fun out of it for people who, even casually, enjoy superhero movies.

The constant cynicism is also wearing, even for someone as cynical as I am. Daniel’s mention of a crew member who fell asleep and crashed while driving home after a late shoot—a real issue in the industry—is played for laughs, along with everything else. Yet in order to to feel something about all these characters, we need to know that they feel something about each other, and that’s not entirely clear yet. Maybe the studio bosses will let them flesh it out in the sequel.