Before The Odyssey, Himesh Patel Headlined A Short-Lived HBO Superhero Parody Show
Most modern movie and TV show fans are familiar with words like "franchise" and "IP," but it's worth remembering that these are business terms 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 financial 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 undergirding the way something like "franchise" has infiltrated our daily conversations about the media we engage with.
It's that very cynicism that the 2024 HBO TV show "The Franchise" takes aim at. "The Franchise" is a comedy series about the production of "Tecto: Eye of the Storm," a fictional superhero flick that may connect to a crossover event film titled "Centurios 2." The show unfolds from the point of view of one Daniel Kumar (Himesh Patel), the first 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. Daniel himself is quietly a fan of the superhero genre, but he aspires to tactfully keep his fandom secret so as to remain professional.
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." There, he plays Eurylochus the second-in-command and brother-in-law to the film's protagonist, Odysseus (Matt Damon).
The Franchise is a spoof of superhero cinema
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 Bouchard (Daniel Brühl), a strange director who has never helmed a film of this size before. Brühl's character is clearly a nod to the way that real-world indie 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 Bouchard's mess after he decides to use a lighting rig that temporarily blinds the movie's stars Adam Rudolph (Billy Magnussen) and Peter Fairchild (Richard E. Grant). This leads to one of the film's producers being fired and then replaced by Anita (Aya Cash), who just happens to be Dan's ex-girlfriend.
And things only get more chaotic from there. If you need a better sense of the tone and mood of "The Franchise," know that it 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 are prime real estate for him.
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.
What did critics think of The Franchise?
"The Franchise" only lasted for a single, eight-episode season. It was intended to continue, but it was canceled by HBO in early 2025.
Critics liked "The Franchise" okay, and the show has a 73% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Writing for The New Yorker, 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 all too well.) She liked 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.
Elsewhere, Lucy Mangen gave "The Franchise" a middling review in a post for The Guardian, feeling that the show's satire is actually quite limp and that the series' only real saving grace is Himesh Patel himself. He's the only one who brings a sense of humanity to the show, Mangen argues, while most of the series' other characters feel like "ciphers."
It's too bad "The Franchise" won't be back for more. There's a lot more that the show could have done, especially now that the superhero movie bubble of the 2010s has properly burst.