"It's just the biz."
"We're craftspeople, our director's a visionary. Forward cinema!"
— Daniel "Dan" Kumar
The Franchise is a satirical British Work Com created by Jon Brown and executive produced by Brown, Armando Iannucci, and Sam Mendes. It stars Himesh Patel, Aya Cash, Jessica Hynes, Billy Magnussen, Lolly Adefope, Isaac Powell, Richard E. Grant, and Daniel Brühl.
Dag (Adefope), new third assistant director, gets a job at Maximum Studios' latest blockbuster superhero movie: Tecto: Eye of the Storm. Behind the scenes, the production of Tecto is a mess, with first assistant director Dan (Patel) constantly putting out fires, trying to help his director Eric (Brühl)'s vision come true, managing the actors, and getting stunts to happen. All of this happens as the upper heads of the studio give their orders and constantly change around what is or is not allowed to happen in the movie itself, even though the shots are rolling and they are already behind schedule. The absurdity of making entertainment is the entertainment here.
It premiered in the United States on HBO and Max on October 6, 2024, and in the United Kingdom on Sky Comedy on 21st October of that year.
The show was cancelled after one season on January 4, 2025.
The series contains examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: The series in general is one to the trend of Shared Universe franchises that have abounded in the film industry since the 2010s, notably the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Warner Bros.'s own DC Extended Universe. The characters in the in-universe productions have no real clear parallels to either Marvel or DC, though, but the intent is obvious.
- All Women Hate Each Other: According to Pat, the reason Maximum Studios canned their planned all-female teamup film The Sister Squad is because the all-female cast and crew couldn't help but fight each other. Given that he waves off any misogyny with a "Just Joking" Justification, it's not clear how truthful this is.
- Brutal Honesty: On Peter's last day of filming, he hands out wrap gifts to the crew: t-shirts with "CUNT” in large letters in the front, and a long statement on the back confirming that those are his actual feelings about his colleagues and not some affectionate in-joke.
- Binary Suns: Enforced In-Universe. The studio insists that the movie needs to be brighter, but the director Eric is annoyed because there's no in-universe light source for the scene he's shooting. So he gets the idea to add a second sun to the alien planet. Unfortunately, the lighting rig temporarily blinds the actors...
- Bland-Name Product: Maximum Studios, a far-reaching superhero franchise that has one creative head at the top, clearly bears no resemblance to any real-life studios. Doubly funny when one considers that The Franchise is made by HBO, a sister company to Warner Bros., a rival company to Disney, who attempted to follow the MCU's footsteps with their own superhero franchise to... mixed results.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Eric goes off on a rant after the studio imposes Product Placement for Chinese farming equipment, which does not fit in a movie set in space. Unfortunately the audio of the rant gets leaked:Eric: Fսck China. Yeah? Fսck China! Fսck dim sums. Fսck finger traps. Fսck Mulan. Fսck fortune cookies. Fսck sweet sour. Fսck Peking duck. Fսck silk. Fսck ying. Fսck yang. [...] Fսck the pandas. Glad they can't reproduce.
- Company Cross-References: Tecto is shot (as is the series) at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden (Maximum Studios is implied to be a tenant and not a WB unit). Warner Bros. and HBO share a parent company.
- Destroy the Evidence: The end of "The Bridge" has Dan instructing MS crews in Armenia to destroy all videos that captured the destruction of the wrong bridge. Anita then bribes Armenian-based crew members to not speak of what happened.
- Executive Meddling:
- Eric has to drop the fish people from Tecto because the studio decided to kill them all off in their tentpole film, Centurios 2.
- After being informed that the film needs more feminist optics, the director and ADs hastily rewrite things to give the fourth lead, the Lilac Ghost, a superpower even though she doesn't have one in the comics.
- The cameo assigned to the movie gets changed last minute.
- Increased when Pat is getting back at Eric for his behavior and a leak of Eric's frustrated anti-China rant.
- Eye Scream:
- Adam and Peter end up with burns to their eyes after lighting is rigged to simulate Binary Suns.
- Bryson wears an eyepatch to work because he forgot to take off a contact lens for four days in a row and it fused to his eyeball. He blames it on a work-life imbalance.
- Hostility on the Set: In-Universe.
- On the set of Tecto, Peter hates being second on the call sheet and takes every opportunity to put down the lead, Adam. Meanwhile, Quinn, the closest thing the film has to a female lead, is done with the misogynistic set environment and fandom and just wants to leave. It gets worse when Kyle shows up to cameo.
- According to Pat, the studio canned the all-female teamup The Sister Squad because the cast and crew (who were all women) couldn't help but fight.
- On Episode 1.6, Eric locks himself in his trailer and refuses to come out. Already cold and tired from working on night shoots, the crew ends up on the verge of a mutiny, chanting "Fuck Eric!"
- Hypocritical Humor: Pat likes to go on about how they're about empowering women while establishing how sexist he is. This is most prominent when he talks about siloing off all the female characters into one girl movie, while claiming it was a grand feminist gesture.
- "Just Joking" Justification:
- Kyle does this any time he insults Adam, or even replaces his food with batteries. Interestingly, he also does this when he says he's in love with Adam.
- When Kyle steals the crystal prop, Pat brushes it off as a joke.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Dag in episode 1.7 "The Bridge" after the demolition crew blows up a bridge; just not the one that they were supposed to and were cleared to do.
- No Stunt Double: A plot point in episode two- Peter can only do the stunt three times due to his health.
- Parody Product Placement: To help aid with the budget, the Tecto movie has to include Chinese farming equipment. This is in a movie that is mostly set in space and the crew ultimately shoehorns it into a scene where Tecto cries over his dying wife.
- Power Crystal: Eric procures a beautiful crystal to use as a prop for the "Reality Crystal" in the Tecto movie. The studio likes the look and creates a bigger version for the currently shooting Centurios 2.
- Real Trailer, Fake Movie:
Word of God in the supplementary materials has that "Tecto" had the same full production process as a real movie, right down to them making real scripts for the entire movie for the 'actors' to hold, to the point that the production team, if they really wanted to, could make "Tecto" for real. - Shared Universe: In-Universe example. Maximum Studios is a multi-movie franchise focusing on superheroes, being an adaptation of in-universe comics, as well.
- Shout-Out: The characters are Hollywood creatives (though they're the first to admit they're using "creatives" loosely) and frequently mention contemporary people in showbiz such as Christopher Nolan, David Mamet, Amy Herzog (though Anita misnames her as "Annie"), Wes Anderson, and Aaron Sorkin.
- Stylistic Suck: The Tecto script is very hokey, and Dan even cringes at some of the line readings and stunts.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Eric finds a shoelace in his porridge.
- Toilet Humour:
- Adam heard about the benefits of fecal transplants and asks Dag to be the stool donor. She agrees and signs nondisclosure agreements. However, thanks to Adam not explaining how the collection procedure takes place, Dag just poops in his trailer. Not in the trailer's toilet, the actual trailer.
- Dag is worried that she'll go to an Armenian prison after the whole blowing up the wrong bridge disaster. She watches a documentary about Armenian prisons and learns that the prisoners use buckets as toilets. A shared bucket.
- Troubled Production: The production of Tecto: Eye of the Storm is a mess, due to hostility between the actors, Creative Differences between the director and the studio, overspending, the studio hastily overwriting the script on a frequent basis, and so on.
- Unobtainium: In-Universe, the Centurios film franchise involves some rare, sparkly crystals appropriately called "Resourcium" which apparently make for excellent power sources.