If you thought Armando Iannucci couldn’t find a more colourful world than politics to satirise, think again – the man behind The Thick Of It, Veep, The Death Of Stalin and more is back as executive producer of The Franchise, exploring the chaos unfolding behind the scenes of a major superhero movie. Teaming up with director Sam Mendes and showrunner Jon Brown, Iannucci’s latest series ventures into the realm of blue screens, spandex, gods, and monsters, as the production of ‘Tecto: Eye Of The Storm’ – from ‘Maximum Studios’ – threatens to go spectacularly off the rails. Expect a storm of clashing creative visions, cantankerous stars, and overbearing execs.
While the series centres on Himesh Patel’s First AD, Daniel, and Lolly Adefope’s Third AD, Dag, as they desperately try to keep ‘Tecto’ on track, one of the complications in the mix is pretentious director Eric – played by Daniel Brühl, who has his own super-franchise experience having played Zemo in the MCU. “It is a crazy world,” Brühl tells Empire of the superhero filmmaking experience. “There’s a lot of power, there’s a lot of egos, there’s a lot of money, put into a crazy fairy tale, adults dealing with what you could consider as completely surreal, childish bullshit. But it is incredibly serious in every single moment! So it was about time that someone came up with the ingenious idea to make a satire about it.”
Getting The Franchise right meant Brown digging into stories from real superhero sets. “We’ve spoken to a lot of people,” he says. “They’re often really complimentary. Everyone’s trying to make something great. But you do get insights into how chaotic and dysfunctional franchises are, and the amount of money that is spent, and the kind of length they go to to avoid making decisions on things.” And since superhero cinema is still big business, there’ll be plenty more material to draw from should The Franchise continue. “I think the recent Marvel news with Robert Downey Jr coming back — that’ll be Season 2, reflecting that, if we get there,” says Brown. “We’ll be thinking about: what happens when a franchise starts looking back and becoming nostalgic, instead of looking forward?” The possibilities seem positively multiversal.
Read Empire’s full feature going on set of The Franchise in the 40 Years Of The Terminator issue – on sale Thursday 26 September. Pre-order a copy online here. The Franchise comes to Sky and NOW from 21 October.