Big names Sam Mendes and Armando Iannucci are among those skewering superhero movies in new satirical comedy series The Franchise – streaming on Neon. The first episodes pass a crucial sniff test, reports Steve Newall.
Try as they might, so often films and shows that purport to show us what production really looks like behind the scenes fail a crucial test—do we really believe that what we’re seeing is a real shoot taking place? There are a bunch of reasons why this can go wrong, ranging from the fact that sets are generally boring, often require a bit of exaggeration in their recreation, to the (probably more pertinent) fact that they are also extremely expensive to build.
Shooting a scene in which the characters are themselves shooting a scene (or trying to) can be a challenging exercise, and you can forgive producers for not wanting to blow their whole production budget on faking a production inside their actual production. But where it’s crucial to the story being told, failing to clear this hurdle can puncture the viewer’s experience if they don’t really believe what they’re seeing—perhaps even more so when there’s sharp satire being applied to showbiz, as there is here in The Franchise.
Very quickly, The Franchise suggests that capturing the scale of a movie shoot is not going to be a problem. From the first episode’s opening minute, a oner takes us across a studio soundstage, the tracking shot introducing us to most of the comedy’s key characters, and the film they are working on—Tecto: Eye of the Storm, the latest made-up comic book movie from made-up Maximum Studios. The Marvel-ness of the shoot is quickly evident as the perky Challengers-esque score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross bounces along in the background, the camera movement capturing the energy of a blockbuster about to call ‘action’.
Tecto looks cut from a similar cloth as Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and associated cosmic Thor instalments. As we learn later, it features a hero who wields a jackhammer that’s invisible, his vibrating gloves able to cause earthquakes. It’s a motion that when you see an actor perform it is, yes, as ridiculous it sounds.
As the fish men and moss men extras assemble on the temple ruins, the leads prepare, and the crew move into position, The Franchise throws us into the deep end of the chaos. Our audience surrogate, having just arrived on the production themselves, is third assistant director (emphasis on ‘assistant’) Dag (Lolly Adefope).
Moments after her introduction to first assistant director Daniel (Himesh Patel), he’s already tasked her with smelling “Gary the boom guy” to figure out what intoxicants he’s on—while movie star Adam (Billy Magnussen), aka Tecto, sings the praises of his “turkey meat and muscle milk shake”. As for Adam’s scene partner Peter (Richard E. Grant), well, we are fortunately whisked away from before he can complete his “joke” about a transexual going into a sauna (“it’s probably not ok, but fuck it”).
This stylish intro—befitting episode one’s Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes—is an impressive opening, showing off the resources available to The Franchise. Also featuring other members of its excellently-cast ensemble (including Daniel Brühl as Tecto’s perhaps out-of-his-depth director) the oner showcases some of the absurdity to come, with micro-crises like “We have a fish person in a panic spiral”. Emerging as central to the series is Himesh Patel’s Daniel. He’s the one keeping things moving, while trying to lift spirits (presumably including his own) with false positivity. “So, just another 83 days and then we’re done—let’s savour every moment”.
If you’re detecting a familiar style from this dialogue, well, there’s certainly a whiff of comedy great Armando Iannucci to it—particularly his patented profanity. But while Iannucci’s name is on the tin here (as executive producer alongside Mendes, among others), The Franchise comes from the pen of Jon Brown (no slouch himself, with Succession and Veep among his credits).
Aside from the everyday chaos of a film set, there’s plenty to mine for satirical purposes, too—The Franchise poking fun at the corporate superhero machinery in a not dissimilar way to how the Vought Cinematic Universe is mercilessly mocked in The Boys. Not that there are any exploding heads or accented Kiwis to be seen here (yet).
But Marvel feels very much the target, particularly when Maximum Studios boss Pat (Darren Goldstein)—a thinly veiled Kevin Feige type—parachutes in to meddle with the production. Pat’s presence would be less destabilising were it not for the departure of the film’s producer. Their replacement, Anita (Aya Cash from… The Boys), is more focused on collecting her paycheck and avoiding friction than she is with insulating the busy crew from corporate meddling.
This sets up the show’s main targets for ridicule, and a central conflict—not commerce versus art, exactly. Perhaps more commerce versus competence. This is terrain that may feel familiar, but there’s plenty of talent both behind The Franchise itself and featured onscreen that promises to elevate it above similar efforts (see: Judd Apatow’s disappointing The Bubble). Most of the ensemble cast seen here would be scene stealers in any other production—Grant and Magnussen in particular.
Hey, if Hollywood can’t seem to resist churning out the sort of movies made fun of here, at least we’ve got an irresistible send-up to take the piss out of them.
