Although superhero tales abound, Veep creator Armando Iannucci is seeking to go deeper into the world of superhero filmmaking with his next HBO pilot. The Franchise, a comedy on the challenges of running a long-running superhero franchise like the MCU, has had its pilot ordered by the network. Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, who just finished shooting his new feature Empire of Light, has been enlisted to help bring his vision to reality. The movies in this series are an attempt to dissect the conventions of the superhero genre “A group of optimistic people caught in the chaotic, incoherent, and ecstatic world of superhero franchise filmmaking. When they succeed, they’ll have to ask themselves if this is the beginning of a new era in Hollywood film or the end of an era for the movie industry. I don’t know if I’ve stumbled onto a dream factory or a chemical facility.”
Iannucci, together with his former Veep and Avenue 5 colleague Jon Brown (Succession), and Keith Akushie, wrote the pilot episode’s narrative (Siblings). The pilot will be written by Brown and Akushie, with additional help from Marina Hyde. Brown, together with Akushie, Hyde, and Iannucci of Dundee Productions and Mendes of Neal Street Productions, will act as executive producers for the programme they have written. Members of Mendes’s Neal Street team, including Pippa Harris, Nicolas Brown, and Julie Pastor, will be involved with the picture as executive producers. Since Iannucci’s successful comedy Veep, which was based on his earlier British series The Thick of It, has been airing on HBO for several years, the two have been inextricably linked.
At the same time as it was a rating success, the programme was also a critical darling, winning an unprecedented 17 Emmys over the course of its existence. Avenue 5, his follow-up, has not been nearly as successful. Though the cast, which included Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad, received generally excellent reviews, the show is set to end after its 2nd season because its members were not renewed for a third. However, he has already established a track record of success with the movies In the Loop and The Death of Stalin that he directed. Mendes, on the other hand, will make his directorial debut on television with the pilot episode of The Franchise, and he certainly has a strong filmmaking background to draw on.
Though he only has one Oscar nomination to his name (for American Beauty), he has directed other critically acclaimed features, such as the current 1917 and both of the most recent James Bond films, Skyfall and Spectre. He has some television experience, though, having worked as an executive producer on shows like the Penny Dreadful series and Britannia. Empire of Light, his next film, premieres on December 9 of this year.