‘The Franchise’ Skewers Superhero Movies in Teaser Trailer

Jackie Strause
·2 min read

Hollywood big-budget tentpoles get ready, Armando Iaunucci is coming for you.

The Veep and Avenue 5 creator/writer teamed up with Succession and Veep writer Jon Brown and the pair have crash-landed from the worlds of media, politics and outer space onto a superhero movie set for the satirical series, The Franchise, which has now dropped a teaser trailer.

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Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) is director and executive producer along with Iaunucci (The Thick Of It, The Death Of Stalin) and Brown, with Brown as showrunner.

“Everything’s exploding at a million miles an hour, and the movie is a scrotum resting on a razor’s edge,” says Himesh Patel to set the tone in the footage. Patel is playing the director an unloved franchise movie “fighting for its place in a savage and unruly cinematic universe.”

Per the logline, “The comedy series shines a light on the secret chaos inside the world of superhero moviemaking, to ask the question — how exactly does the cinematic sausage get made? Because every fuck-up has an origin story.”

Rounding out the cast is Aya Cash, Jessica Hynes, Billy Magnussen, Lolly Adefope, Darren Goldstein and Isaac Powell, with Richard E. Grant and Daniel Brühl as recurring guest stars.

“I’ve eaten a lot of shit for this money — a Subway footlong bit of turds,” says Brühl at one point.

The Franchise premieres Sunday, Oct. 6 at 10 p.m. on HBO, streaming on Max, with episodes dropping weekly.

Mendes, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Brown and Julie Pastor executive produce for Neal Street Productions; with Iannucci for Dundee Productions, along with Brown and Jim Kleverweis. The pilot was directed by Mendes and written by Brown.

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