The scoop on superheroes in The Franchise

By Gen Terblanche10 February 2025

The scoop on superheroes in The Franchise

In villain origin terms, The Franchise fell in a vat of toxic waste about 10 years back during a lunch date between producer-directors Sam Mendes (1917) and Armando Iannuci. While Armando was busy with political satire series Veep, Sam was suffering through his second film for the James Bond franchise. After hearing Sam go off about the insanity of working on massive franchise titles (production on Skyfall, for example, had to shut down for 10 months when MGM went bankrupt), Armando quipped that these kinds of franchise woes would make a funny show. 

Then, while working on Avenue 5, Armando had his own run-in with Hollywood superhero shenanigans when he found out that he couldn’t get hold of an actor he wanted for just two days because the performer – one of Britain’s all-time great theatre actors – was going to be locked in Shepperton Studios for the next three months doing green screen work and shouting at non-existent monsters like a crazy person. 

And a supervillain was born!

To complete their power trio, executive producers Armando and Sam invited writer-creator Jon Brown (Succession, Veep and Avenue 5) to join them, as they spilled the tea on the often absurd realities of superhero movie work in The Franchise. The series takes us behind the scenes on the making of the fictional superhero movie Tecto: Eye of the Storm. Think of it as the Ant Man to “Maximum Studios’” Avengers-style title, Centurios 2, which is clearly sucking up all the studio’s love, money and attention. 

The Franchise digs into the awkward politics of making film while you’re a small cog in a massive machine, and it allows the writers to make use of some of the best (or worst) stories they’ve heard about superhero filmmaking behind the scenes as inspiration. Here are just five of our favourites.

PS: Scroll down for our top 10 series and movies about making series and movies on Showmax.

Binge The Franchise now.

1. The lights! My eyes!

In episode 1, based on a lighting note from Maximum’s big wigs, Tecto: Eye of the Storm director Eric (Daniel Brühl) decides to film an alien planet scene with two suns, overruling first Assistant Director Dan’s (Himesh Patel) warning about his new lighting rig for the scene, which is so bright and strong that it burns the eyes of their beefcake lead performer Adam (Billy Magnussen) and the film’s villain, played by famed theatre actor Peter (Richard E Grant). 

In real life, during the filming of Black Panther, Daniel Kaluuya (W’Kabi) had to go to the ER to get treatment for “sunburned eyes”. He and Lupita Nyong’o (Nakai) were both left with reddened, painful eyes thanks to a combination of filming under bright sunlight and reflection from the water, with the addition of the super-powered production lighting.

2. Frankenstein’s superhero

Building a superhero body from squishy mortal flesh is a dark science! From episode 1 onwards, Adam’s struggles getting into shape as Tecto mirror real-life comments from superhero actors on their absurd and even dangerous diets. From episode 1 when Adam is boasting about how tasty his turkey meat muscle milkshake is, to episode 3 when he worries about developing gynecomastia and breast cancer because of the growth hormone he’s taking, it just gets worse! At one point he’s worried that the one white hair on his back could be a sign that the growth hormone he’s taking, which was engineered to help sheep to pack on mass, is actually making him grow wool. And those dazzling lazer blue eyes? Special eyedrops, baby. Ignore the blue fluid leaking from his nostrils. 

In real life, actor Rob McElhenney got the realest of them all when he broke it down on his Instagram: “Look, it’s not that hard. All you need to do is lift weights six days a week, stop drinking alcohol, don’t eat anything after 7pm, don’t eat any carbs or sugar at all, in fact just don’t eat anything you like, get the personal trainer from Magic Mike, sleep nine hours a night, run three miles a day, and have a studio pay for the whole thing over a six to seven month span. I don’t know why everyone’s not doing this. It’s a super realistic lifestyle and an appropriate body image to compare oneself to.”

3. And…Cut! No, I mean, cut the whole scene

The Franchise S1 on Showmax

Superhero movies are notorious for last-minute charges, re-writes, re-shoots and cut scenes. In episode 1, Dan urges third assistant director Dag (Lolly Adefope) to make sure that their big dog producer Pat (Darren Goldstein) never wanders near Stage P. That’s where they’re hiding the 60 live Yoshino cherry trees that Eric had imported from Kyoto…before the scene requiring the trees was cut.

If you want to cry about wasted work, there’s a whole fan wiki on Marvel deleted scenes that never make it to screen. One of the most notorious was Bryan Singer’s 2006 movie Superman Returns, which scrapped the entire five-minute opening segment in which Kal-El returns to Krypton in a spaceship. Do the mental arithmetic on the sets and sequences that would involve, because it reportedly cost $10 million dollars – before it got flushed down the editing toilet. 

4. Femoids? (screeching noise)

The more the budget balloons, the bigger an audience has to be for the film to make a profit. So when Maximum Studios cancels a highly anticipated all-female film in episode 3, Pat orders Tecto’s new producer, Anita (Aya Cash), to shoehorn in some girl power, by expanding the role and powers of one of Tecto’s minor characters, the superheroine Lilac Ghost (Katherine Waterston plays Quinn Walker/Lilac Ghost). Stumped by the strong female character issue (clumsy equals complex, right?), they decide to give her a new weapon, the “Stick of Maximum Potency”, which would make her the most powerful being in the universe. 

From there it just gets more and more absurd, as Adam/Tecto starts complaining about feeling emasculated, and Dan rages at the issues with re-writing comic book canon.

Episode 3 tackles superhero movies’ biggest real-life villains: vicious hordes of comic book “purists” who dogpile any hint of diversity, with the mindset that white men are the default human and everyone else is political. Captain Marvel star Brie Larson getting literal death threats is just the tip of the world’s filthiest iceberg.

5. Oh no! It’s a cameo

You know that scene in a Marvel movie when Deadpool shows up and the crowd loses their minds? Tecto would love a little of that shine. But in episode 4, the crew find out that instead of getting a cameo from Many Man, the lead hero of Centurios 2, they’re being lent the third-rate character The Gurgler instead. Adding to the crew’s misery, Adam and The Gurgler’s performer Kyle (Nick Kroll) have a rocky past thanks to hurt feelings over a sitcom role. And an arms race begins with both actors begging the scriptwriters to beef up the comedy and quips for their scenes. Blame scheduling conflicts. Blame the fact that Tecto is a doomed production. The episode also takes us onto the set of Centurios 2, where we get to see what an actual big-budget production looks like.

In real life, we can now imagine the gnashing of teeth behind the scenes when Rick Mason from Black Widow got tapped for a Secret Invasion cameo, or when Elon Musk wedged his way into Iron Man 2.

Watch the trailer for The Franchise

Now suit up, grab your reality-warping goggles, and binge The Franchise.

Fun fact

To distinguish between the real crew and the in-story crew shooting Tecto, the Franchise crew wore yellow lanyards, while the performers playing crew on Tecto wore black lanyards. 

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