Egotistical actors, meddling executives, extras suffering panic attacks from beneath their prosthetic make-up – the new Sam Mendes-Armando Iannucci-produced comedy The Franchise is a fictional series inspired by real-life drama behind the scenes of superhero movies.
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Overall, the vibe is one of barely-contained chaos – a reflection, says showrunner Jon Brown, of the off-camera reality of the superhero industry.
“People think these movies are laid out in neat phases for the next 10 years. Then you hear about a set where, in the morning, a limo literally pulls up, the window comes down, and they hand out new script pages,” Brown explained. “Or producers on set have eight versions of the same script open, and they go through each script, cherry picking lines, and then they Frankenstein a scene out of nothing.”
The Franchise is watchable, though tremendously sneery of nerd culture – you can tell everyone involved is delighted superhero movies are on their uppers and that the day of geek in popular culture is at an end. But setting to one side such unfortunate snobbery, its portrayal of Hollywood anarchy is right on the money – as the following countdown of real-life superhero movie disasters confirms.