When the wheels are coming off, there is no more exquisite humiliation that can be visited upon an adult human than being the director of a big-budget superhero franchise movie. Not even working as the guy who had to wipe a medieval king’s arse. “Groom of the Stool” is sometimes a more covetable credit than “Directed by”. And as even the most fearsome talent agent will tell you, both guarantee you get shit on the back end.
But that’s confusing, you might think, because aren’t directors supposed to be god tier? That’s definitely what I thought, back when I started as one of the writers on The Franchise, a new HBO comedy set behind the scenes in the world of superhero movies. Except the more we talked to people inside the comic-book movie machines of Marvel and DC – and we talked to huge numbers of people – the more dysfunctional the picture that emerged became.
