“The Franchise” is a snooty superhero film satire

HBO’s new comedy series The franchise it’s about the making of Tecto: Eye of the Storma superhero movie for a thinly disguised version of Marvel Studios. Shortly thereafter, it becomes clear that the only person in the cast and crew who is at all interested in the film’s subject matter – Tecto, a superhero who can cause earthquakes with the help of an invisible jackhammer – is first assistant director Daniel (Himesh). Patel), who grew up reading the source material. Daniel’s new assistant Dag (Lolly Adefope) is just trying to get a producer credit as quickly as possible after starting her career late. The demanding director Eric (Daniel Brühl) sees this as an opportunity to strengthen his friendship with Christopher Nolan (whom he refers to as “Chris”). The main character, Adam (Billy Magnussen), is trying to get into the fashion industry and explore other career opportunities. Classically trained actor Peter (Richard E. Grant) is only in it for his salary. And new producer Anita (Aya Cash) sees taking on the troubled project as a way to make money and, as she bluntly puts it, “make real movies, not this franchise bullshit.”

Superhero films in general, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in particular, are ripe for ridicule at this moment. At some point Daniel says to Anita: “The studio has lost its way. These films aren’t as well received as they used to be.” He might as well be describing the entire post-Endgame era of the MCU that has had a few hits but for the most part seems to elicit either ridicule or surprise that new movies and shows continue to emerge. Even the recent announcement that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the films and now Dr. Doom playing instead of Iron Man seemed more sad than exciting to many fans.

But this abrupt transition from pop culture necessity to afterthought makes it almost too easy to spoof the superhero industrial complex. At one point Daniel accuses Anita of being better than this ridiculous film she is producing. It’s a little The franchise It tells a lot about itself, as the series often gives the impression that it is so superior to its subject that it doesn’t even have to make an effort to successfully satirize it. Thanks to the sheer talent of the cast and the kind of creative swear words found in every comedy he produces Veep Creator Armando Iannucci, there’s a lot to laugh about – but given the lineage, just not nearly enough. And most of the satire seems content to skim the surface of superhero movie culture.

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Although Iannucci is the producer and Oscar winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty) is directed and created by Jon Brown, who previously wrote for Veep, Consequenceand Iannucci is disappointing Veep sequel, the science fiction sitcom Avenue 5. Here we pick up many years of the once-dominant history of Maximum Studios, which has its own Kevin Feige character in Shane, an all-powerful studio boss who is so overwhelmed that he never comes to set and instead communicates through Bryson ( Isaac Powell ), the type of eager young sycophant who uses “action” as a verb. Anyone associated with Tecto I can see that Shane and his aggressive brother Pat (Darren Goldstein) have no real confidence in their film and just need a product to get into theaters between the bigger tentpoles of Maximum. Daniel is afraid that Pat will find out about all of their cost overruns, including wasting money on importing Japanese trees – for a scene later cut from the film – so shocking it would have been enough to build a children’s hospital. (“But at what price, dreams?” Dag replies ironically.)

The franchise is strongest at conveying the sheer sense of chaos that comes from such a large and cynical production. One of the show’s most amusing punchlines is also one of the first, as we watch Daniel guide Dag around the set for the first time, deftly anticipating and preventing any crisis before it occurs. Towards the end of their walk together, he approaches Peter and asks Dag to pull him away within six seconds, which turns out to be exactly the amount of time needed to prevent Peter from telling an offensive joke about transsexuals

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Richard E. Grant, Kathryn Waterston and Billy Magnussen

Colin Hutton/HBO

It’s a funny joke, but also one that doesn’t specifically apply to superhero movies – or any movies at all, for that matter. (In this particular context, Peter might as well be an aging corporate vice president who refuses to retire.) The same goes for the Iannucci family’s ability to combine profanity in novel ways, such as in a scene where Eric’s colleague Steph (Jessica Hynes) encourages him to swear before he returns to set, and he unleashes a torrent of words and phrases like “shit,” “cocktangle money fascist,” “fuck clump cosmic anus,” and “granny- Fuckers.” The comedy about silly things that makes this genre unique is much more accidental. Adam, Peter and their beleaguered female co-star Quinn (Katherine Waterston) have a lot of humor about having to do most of their work on cheap-looking sets and/or the green screen, with most of the film being built later on computers. (For some reason, there also seems to be only one person doing the CGI for the film.) Quinn has to deal with the built-in misogyny of both the fan base and the system that makes the films – “I just did it “It was once sexist, in a beer commercial,” Eric recalls, “but I always wanted to do feminism” – while Adam feels pressured to inject himself with various illegal substances to maintain a tecto-sized body. (Instead, he fears that “I made Dorito: bigger at the top, tapering down to a skinny leg.”) Long stretches pass in sweat rather than hilarity, and it often seems as if Brown and the other writers are becoming the audience assuming they despise this stuff as much as they do. But simply identifying a problem with these films and what they’ve done to cinema in general doesn’t have the same impact as coming up with an interesting joke about them.It also feels more than a little hollow that this particular series is part of the vast Warner Bros. Discovery empire, which has not only produced many supposedly box-office-destroying superhero films, but is also currently producing a superhero-related show that will be the same every episode Evening and publish on the same network as

The franchise.Nevertheless, this cast exists. These days it’s nearly impossible to put together an ensemble cast where someone doesn’t have superhero credits in their past, and of course this one has several. As Helmut Zemo, Daniel Brühl was in one of the best MCU projects (Captain America: Civil War) and one of his absolute worst ( The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ). Richard E. Grant played the classic Loki in a few roles Loki episodes of the first season, and Aya Cash was the villainous Stormfront

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– a show whose approach to superhero parody has cast a long shadow over anything else that approaches that territory. Cash feels underutilized – she, Patel and Adefope all play straight men to some degree to the weirdos around them – but Brühl, Grant and Magnussen all have an infectious amount of fun in roles that could easily seem two-dimensional less talented and committed actors play them. On trend But so does almost everyone involved in the production Tecto I wish they would use their skills for a more worthy project from which I emerged

The franchise I deplore the fact that so many actors and producers were involved in a show that isn’t nearly as funny as it should be. The first episode of