Hollywood loves a navel-gazing satire about the movie business. Audiences do too, when given a good reason, from the upbeat mockery of 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain,” to the excoriation of a studio executive in 1992’s “The Player,

Himesh Patel leads the comedy produced by Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes, set behind the scenes of a big-budget comic book adaptation.

HBO comedy 'The Franchise' goes behind-the-scenes of a fictional movie franchise to satirize the artistic bankruptcies driving modern blockbusters.

By the end of the first season, the talented actors and snappy dialogue can't quite save "The Franchise" from exhaustion.