HBO has a new Succession on its hands with its hilarious new workplace satire about the superhero industrial complex. Hailing from Veep mastermind Armando Iannucci, Succession writer Jon Brown, and Oscar winner Sam Mendes, The Franchise is a no-holds-barred look into the absurd realities behind some of the highest-grossing movies in the film industry. Unlike Veep, which saw its clever writing become a self-fulfilling prophecy by the end of its run, The Franchise draws on numerous real-world situations that casts and crews have actually encountered on the sets of superhero movies. The creatives have left no stone unturned and no franchise untouched in their pursuit of creating one of 2024’s best new shows. Even the Mission: Impossible franchise catches a few strays with a far more dire version of their bridge snafu, which is made even funnier by one of the series’ “cameos” early on in the season.

While there are obvious allusions to Warner Bros. Pictures’ own DC Universe, the world of The Franchise bears a striking resemblance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with a rising star tapped to lead (Billy Magnussen) under the visionary direction of an award-winning “maestro” (Daniel Brühl) whose vision gets trampled by the wheels of the superhero machine. It feels like a blatant riff on Eternals and Chloé Zhao, though she was certainly not the first critically acclaimed director to be lured in and spit out by a franchise film.

‘The Franchise’ Is the Best TV Show About Making Movies
Image via HBO

Hollywood loves movies about making movies, and in recent years the industry has dipped its toes into making series about making movies. While many of these projects have been hailed as “love letters to cinema,” it’s impossible to ignore that most have bypassed the less-than-glamorous elements of movie-making, or, at the very least, painted its unpleasantries with a broad and forgiving brush. As someone who has worked on the sets of franchise projects (including a Warner Bros. superhero movie) The Franchise so perfectly captures what being on set feels like. From working sixteen-hour days on less than two hours of sleep; to promising background actors that a multi-hour set-up should only take twenty minutes; to questionable showmances; and the crippling terror of an executive producer showing up unannounced, this series has it all and more. Through it all, however, it’s always been the below-the-line folks holding everything together.

The Franchise isn’t interested in forgiving or forgetting just how merciless this industry is—especially when it comes to making franchise movies. Unlike previous projects that have tried to pull back the veil on moviemaking and focused solely on the directors, cast, and producers, The Franchise focuses on the true unsung heroes on a movie set: first ADs, script supervisors, and all the crew members that no one is lining up to interview on the red carpet of a premiere. This series isn’t a love letter to cinema; it is a love letter to the people sacrificing their mental, emotional, and physical well-being to create the Frankensteined franchise movies that society loves to hate. And therein lies why The Franchise is brilliant. Audiences will tune in to watch the comedic crucifixion of superhero movies, only to walk away with a better understanding of who is really putting in the bulk of the work to make the movies they watch.

‘The Franchise’s Cast Is Full of Dynamic Performances

The Franchise may be an ensemble cast, but its heart and soul is its beleaguered first AD, Daniel (Himesh Patel), who spends the entire eight-episode season trying to hold everything together as it falls apart, piece by piece. Patel is pure dynamite in the role, always threading the line between straight drama and pure satire. By design, audiences don’t really know who each character is when they aren’t on set. A sensation that is true to life on real sets too. There are plenty of throwaway lines about spouses and children, references to previous jobs and career goals. Their lives outside of their jobs simply do not matter, and likely don’t exist because of the hours they keep. But there is something about Daniel that makes audiences want to follow him home at the end of a long shoot day, to puzzle out why his mother calls him often and why he seems endlessly stressed about his home life. While the writing is clearly leading the audience in the direction of curiosity, Patel’s performance really forms that emotional attachment to his character. Daniel may make mistakes throughout the course of the production, but the audience’s support for him never wavers.

The entire cast is exceptional. Daniel’s second-in-command, Dag (Lolly Adefope) feels like an audience-insert to some extent. Her first day on set is filled with chaos, catastrophic studio decisions, and calamity, and so is every day that follows. She isn’t particularly eaten up with the whole superhero thing, which serves as a great counterbalance to die-hard blowhards like Maximum Studios’ production head Pat Shannon (Darren Goldstein). Pat is a clear caricature of Marvel’s Kevin Feige, though the fictionalized version feels more like an “evil twin” of Feige’s as Pat is a bit of a monster (whereas Feige is reportedly a pretty great guy).

Brühl is another standout in a cast of standouts. He has previously spoken about how Germans are notoriously unfunny, and The Franchise allows him to use that trope to his advantage. His dry sense of humor works brilliantly with the dialogue, whether he’s jesting that the studio should have hired Ron Howard instead of a weird little guy like him or shouting “let’s fuck!” instead of “action” to try to appear cool. His presence in The Franchise is an added layer of irony in and of itself, as he is best known to American audiences for his work as Zemo in the MCU. Marvel is no stranger to its actors speaking out about their issues with the franchise, with even Elizabeth Olsen recently painting her experiences in a somewhat negative light. Brühl made his feelings known after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in an interview with German outlet The Local, where he spoke about feeling humiliated by the way the franchise would redact and withhold scripts from its actors. One has to wonder if it’s cathartic to play through those emotions in a satirical fashion with The Franchise. Some of Brühl’s best scenes are with Patel, who he has a great rapport with, regardless of the status of Eric and Daniel’s working relationship, but his best scene partner comes in the form of Steph (Jessica Hynes), Tecto’s long-suffering script supervisor who caters to the whims of the “maestro” even when they’re utterly maddening.

Aya Cash is another cast member who has some experience with superhero franchises, though The Boys was similarly designed to poke fun at the genre. She comes in as Tecto’s new producer, Anita, and she spends the majority of her time dealing with Pat, reckoning with the awkward tension between her and Daniel, and fending off attempts at sabotage from Maximum Studios’ production of their new tentpole Centurios 2: Chrontinuum Begins that is filming on the same backlot. The added irony of her presence in the series is that one of her biggest episodes involves her trying to solve Tecto’s “woman problem” and dealing with the ensuing online backlash around Reddit leaks about the film’s sole female character, which feels like a subplot from The Boys that Stormfront would have been reveling in. The entire storyline is eerily reminiscent of the fallout every time Marvel dares to have a powerful female character like Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel or, more recently, the backlash against Florence Pugh leading the Thunderbolts.

Billy Magnussen’s Adam is pathetic, to put it nicely, and that’s entirely part of his charm. He’s Tecto: the lead of, what he assumes to be, the film that will finally catapult him into the stars. There’s an air of Chris Evans to him, with a touch of Tom Holland sprinkled on top — a good actor who got caught up in the promise of superhero movies, and is now destined to be ridiculed online for his every move and stuck in an endless cycle of certified rotten made-for-streaming movies. You almost want to pity him, especially with how mercilessly cruel his co-star Peter (Richard E. Grant) is throughout the entire course of the production.

‘The Franchise’ Is Must-Watch TV

From Succession to The White Lotus, HBO knows how to make must-watch TV, and The Franchise is destined to be their next big thing. Sundays have proven to be their best time slot for water cooler conversation makers, and people love talking about superhero fatigue with their coworkers. Armando Iannucci, Jon Brown, and Sam Mendes have crafted an unforgettable and endlessly entertaining series that is filled to the brim with wry, dark humor, unfortunate truths, and an exceptional cast that knows exactly how to deliver what this show aims to be. Whether you’re still gleefully consuming all the superhero “content,” regardless of quality, or ready to watch the genre slink off into the shadows, The Franchise is the perfect satire to satiate everyone.

The Franchise debuts on Max on October 6 at 10 PM ET.

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