'The Franchise' review: New HBO comedy asks if superhero films are 'killing cinema'
"Have you ever thought, 'I'm killing cinema'?"
That's the question that third assistant director Dag (Lolly Adefope) asks first assistant director Daniel (Himesh Patel) while working on fictional superhero flick Tecto: Eye of the Storm.
It's a question that's been asked of a lot of comic book movies lately, especially with superhero fatigue setting in and filmmaking legends like Martin Scorsese questioning their merit. It's also the question at the heart of The Franchise, a new HBO comedy from Succession writer and Veep producer Jon Brown. Veep and The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci and Skyfall and 1917 director Sam Mendes also serve as producers, with Mendes directing the first episode.
The Franchise answers the question of whether superhero films are killing cinema with a resounding yes right off the bat, sending up everything from convoluted cinematic universes to gratuitous cameos. But beyond simply pointing a finger and laughing at superhero films, The Franchise doesn't really have that much to say, and it falters as a result.
What's The Franchise about?
The Franchise transports us to the chaotic set of Tecto, the latest project from not-so-subtle Marvel stand-in Maximum Studios. While production is already well underway, the shoot is anything but smooth. Director Eric (Daniel Brühl) is a pretentious auteur, lead actors Adam (Billy Magnussen) and Peter (Richard E. Grant) are at each other's throats, and producer Anita (Aya Cash) is ready to enact some harsh cost-cutting strategies. Plus, there's the worrying matter that overbearing higher-ups from Maxmium Studios, like exec Pat (Darren Goldstein) and Kevin Feige-esque overlord Shane, who only communicates via proxy Bryson (Isaac Powell), are losing faith in the project. It's up to Daniel and the newly arrived Dag to put out all these (sometimes literal) fires and keep Tecto afloat.
The promise of The Franchise is most evident in its ambitious opening, a long take that follows Daniel as he shows Dag around set on her first day. He juggles everything from actors worried about their heavy prosthetics to Peter's attempts at a problematic joke, cleverly preempting the latter six seconds ahead of time. It's the perfect portrait of controlled chaos, as well as a solid introduction to the world of blue screens and superhero spandex we'll be inhabiting for eight episodes. But from there, the laughs come in fits and starts. So does the satire, which you'd expect to excel given all the Veep connections behind the scenes.
The Franchise's satire is lackluster.
The Veep comparison hangs heavy over The Franchise, which attempts some of the same tricks but with far less rewarding results. At first, Eric's dynamic with his too-eager right-hand woman Steph (Jessica Hynes) feels like an attempt at recreating the dynamic between Veep's Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her bag man, Gary (Tony Hale). But there's no depth or background to their relationship, no layers to Steph's coddling of her charge. Elsewhere, a scene where Steph advises Eric to let out all his swearing before directing elicits memorable results in creative expletives like "cocktangle" and "fuckclump," but even these feel like reheated leftovers of Veep and The Thick of It's greatest hits.
In terms of actual satire, The Franchise is haunted by shades of other shows that have parodied the superhero filmmaking industrial complex better in the past. Barry's cameo from CODA writer/director Sian Heder as a new franchise director was a solid send up of award-winning filmmakers getting looped into comic book movies so the studio can accrue prestige points. The Boys' many references to comic book movies and shows — including A-Train's (Jessie T. Usher) extremely expensive TV shows reshoots — prove a consistently sharp spot in a show that's otherwise losing its edge. The Franchise is going to have to do better than a laundry list of superhero film-related buzzwords in order to keep up. Mentions of "phases" and exploited VFX workers can only do so much.
Part of what makes The Franchise's take on comic book movies so ineffective is its clear disdain for them. Many of its critiques — including Maximum's "woman problem" and its fans' treatment of women involved in the films — are valid, albeit fairly surface level. And yes, the comic book movie's grip on pop culture is ripe for parody and deserving of closer inspection. But the show is overall devoid of any understanding of why these kinds of franchises may have resonated in the first place, or why they're so much more disappointing now than they were five years ago, during the era of Avengers: Endgame. Since no character is coming at the project from a place of care — apart from Daniel, who we're told loved the original Tecto comics but whose love has been ground down by years of thankless work in service to show business — we're trapped in a mire of smug cynicism, that of someone who's always stood outside the world they're making fun of, without bothering to take a closer look.
The Franchise could have been so much more.
Thankfully, The Franchise is not without its high points. Grant's performance as a trained theater actor who can't stop being problematic and who considers Tecto beneath him is uproarious. (Doubly so when you remember Grant guest-starred in Loki as Classic Loki.) Magnussen's Adam, whose brawn is matched only by his many insecurities, makes an excellent foil for Grant's archness. Brühl, himself a veteran of the MCU as Baron Zemo, is also having a blast; he's part jittery director plagued with imposter syndrome and part diva. It's a shame, then, that the rest of the more-than-capable ensemble, like Patel, Adefope, Cash, and Hynes, are stuck playing varying shades of stress and contempt.
Another highlight of The Franchise comes as the credits roll, when we catch glimpses of dramatized behind-the-scenes interviews with various cast and crew. Here, the actors like Peter and Adam try especially hard to keep up the facade that all is well, despite being mere inches from cracking. The comedic tension there is infinitely more rewarding than just being shoved into Tecto's chaos all the time, and you can't help but wonder whether The Franchise might have benefited from a larger behind-the-scenes documentary-style format. The show that we got, in the end, remains less than super.
The Franchise premieres Oct. 6 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max, with a new episode every Sunday.