Superhero movies seem to be on a downward swing right now. So does that make this the right time for one of Armando Iannucci’s satires skewering the genre? HBO sure hopes so, because the Veep creator is going to give it a shot with The Franchise, a half-hour comedy set in the Hollywood world of superhero movie-making.
Himesh Patel, Aya Cash, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Hynes, Darren Goldstein, Lolly Adefope, Isaac Cole Powell, Daniel Bruhl, Richard E. Grant, and Ruaridh Mollica feature in the series about a film crew shooting an unloved superhero movie as part of a cinematic universe.
Iannucci co-created the series alongside Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (1917, Skyfall), and you can bet he’ll find every way imaginable to tear apart these lucrative but homogenous blockbusters.
Interestingly, more than a few of the actors in The Franchise have superhero ties. Bruhl has obviously been part of the MCU as Baron Zemo, while Aya Cash played Stormfront in The Boys, and Grant played the villain in Logan.
The Franchise hits HBO on October 6th.