“HBO's The Franchise is a smart, appropriately absurd takedown of the Marvel-ification of Hollywood.”
- An exceptionally capable ensemble cast
- Daniel Brühl's revelatory performance as a weak-willed director
- Sharp, deliciously acidic writing throughout
- Several forgettable, one-note supporting characters
- One or two unfocused, dull-edged midseason episodes
The Franchise is about as inside baseball as it gets. The new HBO series from executive producers Jon Brown, Armando Iannucci (Veep), and Sam Mendes (1917) satirizes the soulless inner workings of a modern-day superhero movie set. Its episodes concern themselves with, among other things, the interchangeability of crossover cameos, morally questionable instances of product placement, and the death threats that overqualified actresses get these days whenever they decide to dip their toes into a sci-fi or comic book franchise. Will these issues be interesting to casual viewers? It’s impossible to say, but there’s no doubt that they are compelling to Brown and his collaborators.
The Franchise isn’t just darkly funny and quick-witted; it’s also well-researched. The problems that its fictional film crew faces while trying to bring the latest installment of a massive, Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque franchise past the finish line aren’t just believable most of the time but often feel ripped straight from past trade headlines. This gives The Franchise a chance to tap into the very real contemporary frustrations of Hollywood crew members and reveal the dangers of an entertainment industry that cares more about brand management and corporate synergy than quality or creativity.
The Franchise does so, of course, while also lampooning the absurdity of the trends that have brought Hollywood to such a disconcerting place to begin with. The series is a satire with a very clear, obvious point — one that it hits repeatedly over the course of its eight episodes — but its genuine concerns about the future of its industry don’t stop it from having a helluva fun time. “Rome’s getting hot these days,” one crew member says to another in a midseason episode. It’s to The Franchise‘s credit that it always feels like it is simultaneously trying to put out the fires and dance amidst the wreckage.
At the center of The Franchise is Daniel (Himesh Patel), the beleaguered First Assistant Director of Tecto: Eye of the Storm, a new spinoff in an extremely MCU-coded superhero franchise. Daniel’s days are spent not only overseeing Tecto‘s set but also managing the egos of its director, Eric (Daniel Brühl), and its two stars, an arrogant British thespian who is literally begging to be canceled (Richard E. Grant) and an insecure wannabe movie star (Billy Magnussen) who believes he is on the “cusp” of finally becoming a member of Hollywood’s A-list. When Pat (Darren Goldstein), one of the brutish heads of Tecto‘s parent studio, arrives unannounced on set one day, he brings with him a new, pressurized status quo, as well as Anita (The Boys star Aya Cash), an ambitious up-and-coming producer who used to date Daniel.
The Franchise‘s eight episodes follow Daniel and the other members of Tecto‘s crew as they painfully make their way through the film’s 117-day shoot. Various absurd problems inevitably arise. Eric is repeatedly steamrolled by Pat and the director of a nearby, bigger sister production, while the last-minute cancellation of another film results at one point in Pat demanding that Anita solve their studio’s “woman problem.” Her solution ends up involving a magical stick from comic book lore and Tecto‘s sole female character, a purple-skinned phantom played by Quinn (Katherine Waterston), an Academy Award-nominated actress who can’t wait to get as far away from Tecto and its rabid base of misogynistic fans as she can.
The Franchise tackles all of its corporate-driven issues with a straight enough face and dry enough wit to effectively emphasize just how ridiculous and soul-killing the day-by-day goings-on of a contemporary franchise production have become. The series does, however, falter a bit in its actual depiction of Tecto and its fellow superhero films. The Franchise and its makers have such a clear contempt for the superhero genre as a whole that the show’s more pointed critiques of the current Hollywood studio system are sometimes undercut by how unbelievably bad its central fictional studio’s movies are made out to be. While The Franchise rarely ever drifts too far away from its core ideas, a few of its midseason episodes, including one chronicling a night shoot that is sent into chaos by an impending visit from Christopher Nolan, feel less focused and exacting than the rest.
The show’s missteps are largely offset by the performances given by its cast. Cash and Patel capably emerge as The Franchise‘s de facto leads and effortlessly conform to its rapid-fire pace and acidic sense of humor. Magnussen and Grant’s characters never really develop beyond their one-note archetypes, but the two actors nonetheless prove to be reliable sources of comedy as well. The same is largely true of British TV vets Jessica Hynes and Lolly Adefope, who play Eric and Daniel’s right-hand assistants, respectively, though The Franchise struggles to consistently justify their characters’ roles in the show.
Ultimately, no one stands out more in The Franchise‘s cast than Daniel Brühl. The actor, who has some experience working in the superhero genre, is a comedic revelation as Eric, an egotistical filmmaker who fancies himself an auteur and yet lacks the spine to do anything more than throw the occasional temper tantrum in order to protect his “vision.” The Franchise is, frankly, worth seeking out just to see how Brühl takes lines like, “I really do want to say something about fracking!” and manages to make the absolute most out of them. In the actor’s capable hands, Eric transforms into both a ridiculous send-up of a visionary artist and a sympathetic portrait of a man who doesn’t yet realize that his ideas don’t actually matter at all to his employers.
It’s this line between parody and real pain that The Franchise manages to ride exceptionally well across its first season and what may make it more accessible to viewers who aren’t as in-the-know as the Hollywood insiders who made it. For those who are, The Franchise may not come just as a welcome laugh, a traumatizing reminder of past experiences, or a much-needed wake-up call, but all of the above. It’s a TV series that scorches just about everything it puts in its wake, and it’s both a good and bad thing that it still feels by the end of its first eight episodes like it has only barely scratched the surface of Hollywood’s current problems.
The Franchise premieres Sunday, October 6 on HBO. New episodes air weekly on Sundays. Digital Trends was given early access to the series’ entire eight-episode first season.
