‘The Franchise’: Sam Mendes on How His Bond Movies Inspired the HBO Superhero Spoof (VIDEO)
Production on Tecto: Eye of the Storm rolls on, but in the latest episode of The Franchise, we are finding out that making the fictional and so clearly not a Marvel-inspired (wink wink) superhero movie can be a multiverse of madness.
Titled “The Invisible Jackhammer,” Episode 2 was set on stunt day during the ongoing shoot. With new producer and old fling Anita (Aya Cash) now on location with film-studio bigwig Pat (Darren Goldstein), Tecto‘s First Assistant Director Daniel (Himesh Patel) endured more “wall-to-wall stress,” says Patel. So far, his character has had to deal with hilariously needy leading man Adam (a wonderfully layered Billy Magnussen), prickly villain Peter (Richard E. Grant), and artfully pretentious director Eric (Daniel Brühl), while also dodging the constant threat of the studio head’s unctuous assistant Bryson (star-in-the-making Isaac Powell) and the indifference of his Second AD Dag (Lolly Adefope). “At the same time that he is doing this [job] professionally,” adds Patel, “his personal life is also a bit of a bin fire.”
And it’s that chaos the show creators Sam Mendes and Jon Brown were aiming for. “What felt fun was having the center of the show be the guy whose basic job is to manage those egos and try to corral them all into the making of this thing every day,” says Brown, who understands that non-film industry folks also have to keep the peace and play dealmaker in their day-to-day jobs as well. “It’s just that this environment, this workplace, everything is magnified by 100 percent and egos are more explosive. It’s this sort of fake world of make-believe where tantrums and things are more accepted.”
HBO
But how fake is it really? Mendes admits that the kernel of the show’s idea sprang from his conversations with fellow Armando Iannucci, who worked with Brown on Veep, about his own insane experiences directing the big-budget James Bond movies Skyfall and Spectre. And Brühl, while naming no names, confesses that the more ridiculous moments behind the scenes of Tecto are “not exaggerated…you wouldn’t imagine the amount of absurdity, of chaos, of madness that can happen on these sets.”
“When the money seems to be endless, things just kind of run out of control,” adds Jessica Hynes, who plays Eric’s devoted script supervisor. “You end up with a warehouse full of trees and things you don’t need anymore. There is a lot of excess.”
Watch the full video interview above for more.
The Franchise, Sundays, 10/9c, HBO and Max
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