HBO’s 'The Franchise' Can’t Save Itself From The Superhero Soup

Saturday Night Live, an American institution, turns 50 this year, even though nearly every episode has at least one That Skit. You know the one: it’s funny, but it just goes on for too long? At some point, the Not Ready for Primetime players seem to be doing the skit simply for their amusement and not for the benefit of the audience at large. I bring this up because that’s exactly the feeling viewers might get when watching The Franchise. 

Daniel: “You can make the movie you want to make but behind the movie they think you’re making.”

The eight-episode comedy, which premiered on HBO (and Max) on Sunday, October 6, isn’t about the latest Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s opening up in your neighborhood. Rather, the series, from executive producer Sam Mendes, takes aim at the big superhero movie franchises that dominate our pop culture. The Franchise deliciously skewers the Marvel universe with the subtlety of Thor’s hammer. 

At the center of the series is Daniel (Himesh Patel), an assistant director just trying to get the latest installment of a superhero franchise—Tecto: Eye of the Storm— made. “My job is to keep the actors from killing each other or themselves,” he says. Daniel is juggling a lot. He’s got Adam (Billy Magnussen), an insecure star who is counting on the movie to take him to the next level of fame. Then there’s the moody (possibly mentally unhinged) director Eric (Daniel Brühl), who wants to make a very different movie that the studio wants. (Eric’s movie somehow involves fracking.)

All other movie cliches are present: Pat (Darren Goldstein), the crass studio guy who only cares about making money; Pat’s sycophant lackey Bryson (Isaac Powell), who delivers all of Pat’s unsavory messages; Dag (Lolly Adefope), a career-hungry third assistant director with a penchant for saying inappropriate things; and Stephanie (Jessica Hynes), the script supervisor who is smitten with an extra even though they are both married. And to top it all off, the studio has just sent in Anita (Aya Cash), a producer who happens to be Daniel’s ex-girlfriend. Behind it all is Shane, the much-feared studio head. Like Vera on Cheers or Stan on Will & Grace, Shane is never seen, but his presence over the series looms large.

The Franchise casts a wide net throughout the miniseries and hits all the suspected movie tropes. It’s all a little inside baseball and will probably be the most funny to cinephiles. The third episode addresses the franchise’s “woman problem” and the fact that these films aren’t exactly empowering to their female characters. “I hear you fixed sexism. Beat it over the head with a big sparkly stick,” Anita deadpans. The fifth episode takes on product placement when they are forced to figure out how to weave Chinese farming machinery into the storyline seamlessly. 

There’s also the need for a cameo from another franchise, played to snarky perfection by Nick Kroll as “The Gurgler.” (Sadly, the series could not get any real cameos, so “Christopher Nolan” and “Tom Cruise” are only seen from afar.) How the general movie industry feels about superhero blockbusters is also addressed when everyone freaks out about an interview Martin Scorsese gave to Deadline. “Marty thinks we killed cinema, and that made me rethink everything,” Eric laments. (This is based on an actual real-life incident from 2019 over which Scorsese wrote an op-ed in the NYT.)

Goldstein is particularly fun as the guy everyone fears and whose entire demeanor is not giving a f*ck. “Pat, the philistine, has no taste,” he says. “Guess what? I don’t. Jokes on you, pal.” Richard E. Grant is a hoot as Peter, a long-time franchise star dying to be canceled. “Every day is a Saturday when you are canceled,” he says wistfully. Adefope’s droll delivery is consistently spot on. “I just have good skin and a lot of debt, so people think I’m younger,” she says. Magnussen is pitch-perfect as the needy star who, through the course of the series, thinks he’s turning into a sheep, wants a fecal transplant, and believes the crew wants to see his band perform.

But in the end, despite all the shenanigans, there is no there there. Moments of hilarity—like when Daniel says, “I’m going to get this done if it kills me and anyone involved in this production” in front of the safety crew—don’t outweigh the fact that, in the end, the series is repetitive and boring. Even though all the episodes clock in at 30 minutes or less, the installments still feel too long. The characters exist only in terms of the movie set, with their personal lives only referred to in passing. The result is that they all feel more like caricatures than characters. No one is likable enough to root for (although Daniel comes close), and many of the characters are so annoying they border on grating.

It’s not until the end of the series that there is a tonal shift, and, for a brief moment, we see more of the humanity behind all the chaos. It’s a peek at how the show had the potential to be more than just one extended spoof. Too bad The Franchise couldn’t save itself.

The Franchise continues with new episodes on HBO and Max every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET through the end of November 2024.