The Franchiseimagines life behind the scenes of a Marvel-style blockbuster, painting the process in a hilariously chaotic light. The series stars Billy Magnussen, Aya Cash, Himesh Patel, Daniel Brühl, and more as creatives doing their best to put together a franchise epic with their sanity intact. An egotistical director, apathetic actors, and a first assistant director doing his best to hold it all together are only the tip of the iceberg in this new parody.
Not only doesThe Franchisehave cast members like Cash and Brühl who are no strangers to superhero cinematic universes, it also boasts creators who have worked at the highest levels of the film and television industry. The series comes fromVeepcreator Armando Iannucci,1917director Sam Mendes, andSuccessionandAvenue 5writer Jon Brown. Together, Iannucci, Mendes, and Brown are able to leverage experience in everything from big-budget blockbusters to bitingly funny documentary-style comedies.
The Franchise Star Compares His MCU Experience To HBO’s Chaotic Superhero Movie Satire
EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Brühl addresses the differences between HBO’s satirical comedy series The Franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Screen Rantinterviewed Jon Brown andJames Bond director Sam Mendesabout their work bringing the world ofThe Franchiseto life. The filmmakers revealed how the idea came to be and discussed how accurate the series is to their own experiences. They also shared insights as to why they chose to focus on the characters they did and shared their hopes for how the series will resonate with audiences.
Jon Brown Reflects On Finding His Way To The Franchise
“It Was Immediately Appealing”
Screen Rant:The Franchiseis a brilliant series that shows us the inner workings of the making of a big budget superhero movie, delivered in such a comedic way with such a cast. Jon, the first question I have for you is, what inspired you to create a series focused on the chaos behind the secrets of making a superhero movie?
Jon Brown: The initial idea was from Sam and Armando. They had the idea, based on Sam’s experiences of making Bond movies [and] franchise movies, about making something set in this world. It came to me a couple of years ago, and it was immediately appealing to me as someone that likes these films and spending, honestly, a couple of hours listening to Sam talk about them. He’s a very good storyteller, and he has very many great stories about making those films. Immediately, you get a feeling that there’s something very funny in this.
Then, as you dig deeper into them—specifically franchise films—and what they say about cinema and popular culture, it felt like there was a territory there that no one had really spoken about. I love workplace comedy and sitcom, and it felt like this is a very particular type of workplace that I think, honestly, is pretty universal—the experience of being stuck in it, covering for your boss, dealing with egos, or whatever that is. So, I guess it was just a good way to do my favorite kind of show in a completely different world.
Sam Mendes Reveals How His Experience As A Director Informed The Series
The Environment Depicted In The Franchise Is “Quite Accurate”
Sam, I deeply resonated with this show because I started my career as a set PA. so this was a way for me to kind of relive this stuff. Now, you haven’t done a superhero movie, but you have directed a franchise likeJames Bond, like Jon was saying. How much ofThe Franchiseis based on, or exaggerated from, your real life experience working in your own film career?
Sam Mendes: I think that the environment is very—I hope—quite accurate. The sense of the number of people on set—you know this from having been a set PA—the chaos of it, the people watching other people. Now, in the digital age, the proliferation of monitor screens everywhere—big, huge, high-definition screens. You’re watching people, watching other people. Everyone’s mic’d up. You’re listening to people, and there are these sort of layers of people watching other people. The actors are being watched by the director, who’s being watched by the assistant directors and the PAs, who are being watched by the junior producers being watched by the big producers and sometimes even being relayed back into their offices. It’s this sort of hall of mirrors, and in that regard, I hope it cleaves towards reality.
In terms of green screen and blue screen, I didn’t do so much of that, but my brief experience was short and painful. I found it incredibly difficult, time consuming, and also absurd, because you spend so much time describing what it’s going to be, showing previews about what it’s going to be, or showing art department designs about what it’s going to be. And [you have] people dressed in some sort of fantastical costume, but they’re not in the world that matches that, so, they’re wandering around in these empty spaces dressed as wizards and Christ knows what, and it is absurd. Then you add into this, as Jon says, the world of the franchise, which is constantly evolving with no ending. [It’s] this one long stream of consciousness about superheroes that goes down tributaries that involve TV shows now, and spinoffs, and movies about movies. Even in the more recent Marvel efforts, [there are] movies that refer to themselves. It’s a completely meta experience.
So, I think we all found that there was a rich vein of comedy and, despite all that chaos, romance, and a sense of hope—that it is magic being on a film set, [and] it is extraordinary. There is always that feeling that, “Yeah, it’s crazy, but what else do you want to do with your life? What else could be better than this?” So, there’s also that sense of naive hope that clings to these things, that this movie might be different. This movie might be the one that breaks the mold. It might be The Dark Knight, it might be Black Panther, and everyone there cares very much about what they’re doing. No one’s cynical. I think that’s really makes it moving. And I think what Jon’s done so beautifully is [that] it’s not a cynical exercise. It’s very easy for it to be. This could have been quite a cold, hard show, and it’s not. It’s human beings struggling with something they care about, and that could refer to almost anything, [in] any walk of life. This one just happens to be making movies.
Brown Discusses How Character Journeys Speak To Thoughts On The Film Industry As A Whole
Himesh Patel’s Character Has To Confront The Idea That “Maybe He’s Not Saving Cinema”
I want to talk about the amazing characters in the show. I want to start with Hamish Patel’s character, [the] first assistant director Daniel. I feel like when I was a set PA, I saw a lot of myself fantasizing to be the Daniel. How does Hamish Patel’s character, Daniel, balance his fandom for the comic book seriesTectothat the film is based on with the strain of the job and his insight in what the film needs to succeed? And that one’s for you, Jon.
Jon Brown: When we meet him, we feel that he’s developed a kind of armor and that he’s able to detach himself. There’s a moment in the second episode where Dag says, “Surely if they’re doing something that’s wrong, we should say something,” and his thing is, “But we don’t have an opinion, Dag. That’s not what we do.” What the episode does is takes him from that point and then breaks him open, and he reveals that he really does care about these things. He cares about them a lot, and that’s complicated because what he might have to confront is maybe he’s not saving cinema.
There’s an argument you could make that franchise movies are saving cinema because they’re keeping the multiplexes open, and if you take them away, there’s a very good likelihood that some of the big chains will go—that there won’t be enough big movies to sustain them. You could also make the argument that they’re actually extinguishing that type of movie and that they’re slowly killing them. I guess he’s the embodiment of that conflict.
On one hand, maybe they’re about to make something that will transcend it. On the other hand, maybe they’re not, and they’re going to end up killing cinema. That idea is central to him and, to land that fully, it was really important for us to have an actor that has that level of, that range [and] that emotional depth. And just at his face, he’s so soulful and you can immediately access his emotions. It’s a complicated character. It was a hard part to cast. It was difficult, and I think with him, we’ve really located someone that can portray all of that pain and keep going. He’s a hopeless romantic. He just keeps going in the face of insurmountable odds. He—and that’s the joke right at the end of the pilot, the sweeping up elephant s***—will always find a way to keep going, even in the face of [the fact] it’s not a romantic world all the time. He’s a romantic stuck in an unromantic world.
Mendes On If Franchise Will Resonate With Everyone, Regardless Of Industry Experience
“I Hope It Plays To Both Ends Of The Spectrum”
You can see that the job has taken its toll on him, but he still has that glimmer of hope, which is absolutely needed. Now, Sam, in what ways do you thinkThe Franchisewill resonate with both movie insiders and the general audience?
Sam Mendes: I hope it plays to both ends of the spectrum. I think insiders will find a lot in it that amuses them. It certainly amuses me, and I consider myself to be, relatively speaking, an insider. I think that’s partly because our decision was always to drop an audience down right in the middle of it—to not explain almost anything. Let us work our way through this strange new world, this sort of Alice in Wonderland with all these different and strange creatures doing odd jobs, and work it out for ourselves. So, there’s that. It doesn’t feel like it’s playing to beginners. At the same time, I think a general audience will smell a level of reality and be drawn to it because the characters are sympathetic.
I think an audience decides very quickly whether they’re in or they’re out depending on whether they are interested in the people at the center of the story, and I think what Jon’s done is create characters with dimensions. You’re intrigued as to their motives, their inner worlds, and also whether they’re going to succeed. There’s an element of racing against the clock in all this, which I think is a kind of engine that drives the story forward. Are they going to make the movie? Is it going to be any good? Are they going to complete it? Is it going to be catastrophe? Or might it be, as they all hope, something miraculous that they pull out of the bag at the last minute? You just don’t know.
More About The Franchise Season 1
The Franchise is a Max original comedy television series that follows a film crew as they document their increasingly chaotic and hectic work on a Superhero film franchise. Acting as a satire on the industry, the show looks to lampoon the process and the sometimes unreasonable expectations of keeping a long-standing franchise alive and kicking.
Check out our otherThe Franchiseinterviews:
The Franchisepremieres October 6 on HBO at 10pm ET and will be available to stream on Max.
