By Jana Monji
Are you tired of the superhero genre? HBO’s newest TV series The Franchise examines the feeling of “superhero fatigue.” The series follows a long-suffering film crew as they work on the latest superhero film.
The Franchise is directed by Sam Mandes and features Himesh Patel in the lead role. However, Patel, whose parents are both Indian Gujarati Hindus, does not play a superhero in The Franchise. That’s left to Billy Magnussen as Adam and Richard E. Grant as his co-star Peter. Peter has trod the boards and uses his thespian past to exacerbate Adam’s insecurities. Grant recently portrayed Classic Loki in the Marvel Studios series Loki.
Patel is Daniel, the first assistant director on the superhero film Tecto: Eye of the Storm out of the fictional Maximum Studios. He must manage the production for director Eric (Daniel Brühl) and keep things running smoothly despite problems with the action sequences, the co-stars’ chemistry, some pressure to have Chinese product placement and worries about audience superhero fatigue.
You might be familiar with Patel. When he was 16, he won the role of Tamwar Mason, a role he played for nine years, on the British soap opera EastEnders and even co-wrote one episode (with co-star Charlie G. Hawkins). In 2019, he played Jack Malik, a struggling musician who is the only one in the world who remembers the Beatles in the film Yesterday.
In 2022, he played Dr. Watson in the Netflix movie Enola Holmes 2, opposite Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes and Millie Bobby Brown as the titular character, the sister of Sherlock.
Creator Jon Brown, in a recent Critics Choice Association panel discussion, noted that because of the recent dominance of superhero genre films, “It’s a world that’s ripe for satire.”
“They’re enormous productions and they can take themselves very seriously,” he added.
Yet he sees the problem with the superhero genre is “that all our great actors and lots of our great writers are currently making these movies that are sometimes beneath them.” The Franchise isn’t a “cold, hard satire” because Brown wanted to have “real human warmth” in this show and that’s something that Patel provides.
His character, Daniel, has a son and the long hours associated with filming take him away from his kid. We see the impact this has on his personal life as well as his emotional well-being.
Patel noted, “I’ve got two kids of my own, and so I could relate to that.”
When he met with Mendes for the audition, Patel said, “I just suddenly felt very close to the character. I guess I went into the audition feeling like I already had some sense of ownership of it. “
Aiding Patel’s Daniel is the third assistant director Dag (Lolly Adefope). Also in the mix is the director Eric’s assistant Steph (Jessica Hynes) who has some romantic entanglements. Patel’s Daniel’s romantic past comes back to haunt and humiliate him.
In an interview with ChannelGuideMag.com, Patel noted “There was a lot of stuff throughout the series that we’d read, and we’d ask Jon and any of the other writers, ‘What is this based on? This seems really absurd.’ And they’re like, ‘No, this is based on some research we did, some stuff we heard.’”
In an interview for “L’Officiel,” Patel noted that he does tend to watch superhero films when he needs “an easy sort of fun watch.” Yet from that interview, it seems he leans more into the DC universe.
“There’s something about the world of Batman that lends itself to something more tangible,” he said. “Chris Nolan managed it obviously very well, sort of iconically. The last one with Robert Pattinson, I thought was really good. Then, you’ve got the whole Joker thing going on with Joaquin Phoenix now.”
The Franchise isn’t as dark as the 2022 Pattinson Batman or the 2019 Joker. The film being made in the series, Tecto: Eye of the Storm, is a science-fiction story that requires some ridiculous costuming, flying and some intense makeup for a few of the film’s cast.
The overall feel of the show is one of gentle humor and bemused insider joking. As someone who appreciates some of the superhero genre such as the Disney+ TV series Loki but also could not slog through a full season of the Netflix Iron Fist, even if it would help me understand the full dimensions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I enjoyed watching The Franchise and wouldn’t mind watching a second season.
The Franchise premieres on HBO on 6 October 2024 (Sunday) with another episode of its eight-episode first season released each Sunday until the final episode on 24 November 2024.
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