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Colin Hutton\/HBO<\/p>\n
Most modern movie and TV show fans are familiar with words like “franchise” and “IP,” but it’s worth remembering that these are business\u00a0terms and not artistic descriptors. As often as we wind up having to talk about things like a franchise’s commercial viability or a film’s box office gross (it’s the nature of the beast), we don’t actually have a\u00a0financial stake in such matters. At the end of the day, our only real concern is paying to watch a movie or series and hoping that it’s good. In other words, there’s a cynicism\u00a0undergirding the way something like “franchise” has infiltrated our daily conversations about the media we engage with.<\/p>\n
It’s that very cynicism that the 2024 HBO TV show “The Franchise” takes aim at. “The Franchise”\u00a0is a comedy series about the production of “Tecto: Eye of the Storm,” a fictional superhero flick that may connect to a\u00a0crossover event film titled “Centurios 2.” The show unfolds from the point of view of one Daniel Kumar (Himesh Patel), the\u00a0first assistant director on “Tecto.” As such, it falls to Daniel to handle much of the chaos and weirdness that occurs behind-the-scenes as the movie grinds on.\u00a0Daniel himself is quietly a fan of the superhero genre, but he aspires to tactfully keep his fandom secret so as to remain professional.<\/p>\n
Patel, notably, is a British actor who’s currently earnings critical raves for being one of the best parts (if not the best part) of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”<\/a> There, he plays Eurylochus\u00a0the second-in-command and brother-in-law to the film’s protagonist, Odysseus (Matt Damon).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The Franchise is a spoof of superhero cinema<\/p>\n
HBO<\/p>\n Each episode of “The Franchise” essentially concerns the filming of a separate scene in “Tecto: Eye of the Storm.” The first episode, which centers on Scene 31A, sees Dan scurrying about the movie’s set having to deal with Eric\u00a0Bouchard (Daniel Br\u00fchl), a strange director who has never helmed a film of this size before.\u00a0Br\u00fchl’s character is clearly a nod to the way that real-world\u00a0indie directors are often swept up into the Hollywood blockbuster factory after scoring a modest hit. Dan also has to placate a visiting studio executive named Pat Shannon (Darren Goldstein) and clean up\u00a0Bouchard’s mess after he decides to use a lighting rig that temporarily blinds the movie’s stars\u00a0Adam Rudolph (Billy Magnussen) and\u00a0Peter Fairchild (Richard E. Grant). This leads to one of the film’s producers being fired and then replaced by\u00a0Anita (Aya Cash), who just happens to be Dan’s ex-girlfriend.<\/p>\n And things only get more chaotic from there. If you need a better sense of the tone and mood of “The Franchise,” know that\u00a0it was executive produced by Armando Ianucci, the creator of “The Thick of It” and “Veep,” among other lauded projects. His metier seems to be the foolishness of business, and he loves to mock the large egos that exist therein. Naturally, giant superhero tentpoles in the vein of the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe<\/a> are prime real estate for him.<\/p>\n In addition, “The Franchise” was created by Jon Brown, who previously worked with Ianucci on “Veep” and his satirical sci-fi series “Avenue 5.” Clearly, the two have similar creative sensibilities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n What did critics think of The Franchise?<\/p>\n
Colin Hutton\/HBO<\/p>\n “The Franchise” only lasted for a single, eight-episode season. It was intended to continue, but it was canceled by HBO in early 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Critics liked “The Franchise” okay, and the show has a 73% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>. Writing for The New Yorker<\/a>, Inkoo Kang noted that the fictional studio within the series doesn’t take the “Tecto” movie very seriously, knowing that it only really exists to include cameos and hype other, related films. (One imagines the makers of an MCU movie like “Thor: The Dark World” may know the feeling<\/a>\u00a0all too well.) She\u00a0liked the show’s characters but disliked the amount of time it took for them to be established and fel the satire was perhaps a little too sharp for its own good. There’s just not a whole lot of different between certain real-world superhero films and the parody version seen here.<\/p>\n
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