{"id":373365,"date":"2026-07-28T04:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=373365"},"modified":"2026-07-28T04:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:40:31","slug":"hbos-the-franchise-now-feels-uncomfortably-accurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/hbos-the-franchise-now-feels-uncomfortably-accurate\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO\u2019s The Franchise now feels uncomfortably accurate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">HBO\u2019s The Franchise premiered on October 6, 2024. It\u2019s an <strong>eight-episode<\/strong> superhero satire, and less than a year later it already plays like a documentary with punchlines.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The show follows a fictional blockbuster production stumbling through rewrites, studio panic, ego clashes, and a crew full of people who barely believe in the movie they\u2019re making. That setup lands a lot harder when real superhero franchises keep wobbling.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reports around Supergirl and Avengers: Doomsday, along with memories of the Justice League reshoots and the Batgirl movie that got scrapped, only make The Franchise feel sharper. Its <strong>joke about compromise<\/strong> and exhaustion doesn\u2019t look exaggerated anymore.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also showed up right as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/worst-moment-cinema-superheroes\" rel=\"noopener\">Marvel and DC fatigue<\/a> was getting harder to ignore: rushed rollouts, weaker stories, uneven VFX, and franchise sprawl. Jon Brown, Armando Iannucci, and Sam Mendes were aiming at the <strong>people stuck inside<\/strong> that machine as much as the machine itself.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you follow comic-book movies, it\u2019s easy to see why The Franchise is worth a look: impossible deadlines, meddling executives, difficult directors, and the pressure hanging over a set like weather.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">HBO <strong>canceled it<\/strong> after one season, despite reports of 41,000 viewers on November 17, 2024. It still holds a 74% critics\u2019 score on Rotten Tomatoes, drawing praise for its insider satire and criticism for being too niche or too shallow. You can still watch the lone season on HBO.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HBO\u2019s The Franchise premiered on October 6, 2024. It\u2019s an eight-episode superhero satire, and less than a year later it already plays like a documentary with punchlines. The show follows a fictional blockbuster production stumbling through rewrites, studio panic, ego clashes, and a crew full of people who barely believe in the movie they\u2019re making. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/hbos-the-franchise-now-feels-uncomfortably-accurate\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HBO\u2019s The Franchise now feels uncomfortably accurate&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9323,"featured_media":373364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-373365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373366,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373365\/revisions\/373366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373365"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=373365"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=373365"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=373365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}