Armando Iannucci on spoofing Marvel: 'I asked myself, is it killing cinema?'

But the balding 60-year-old of medium stature does have one superpower. If Marvel’s wardrobe department were to squeeze Iannucci into a Lycra suit, there would be an S on the chest – for satire.

"I wouldn’t be able to rescue people who were trapped in a bank robbery," he says. "But I could shout about the hypocrisy of the banks' investments in fossil fuels."

Sports reporting, news gathering, British and then American politics; all have been targets in an award-winning career that first began with Radio 4's On the Hour and went on to Alan Partridge, The Thick of It and Veep.

Now comes The Franchise, an eight-part satire starring Richard E Grant and Lolly Adefope, about the making of chaotic superhero movie Tecto: Eye of the Storm. It's a place where monstrous egos rule, story arcs go fantastically awry and characters are abandoned on a whim, the whole tottering edifice held together by a heroic first assistant director, played by Himesh Patel.

"I know people call me a satirist," says Iannucci. "But I don’t wake up every morning going, 'Who should I make fun of today?' It’s more, 'What are the issues that make me feel passionately? Where is the power that is being hidden from us, and why is it like that?'"

In The Franchise, the power is held by Machiavellian studio executives and their toadying hirelings. "The guy at the top of Marvel, Kevin Feige, is meant to be really nice," says Iannucci. "Everyone says he’s enthusiastic about stories, so it's not, 'They’re all bastards.' It's more about it being something that becomes unstoppable, the 'too big to fail' thing.

"We saw it with the banks in 2008 and it's there with the social media companies now. When they start, it's wonderful, but the issues set in when they reach a certain scale."

Iannucci speaks very much as a fan; when he was 11 he had a letter published in a Spider-Man comic. "I used to spend all my money on Marvel comics, I had all the first Spider-Mans and Fantastic Fours. Then when I went to university, my mum threw them out and I kind of grew up.

"Later, when I was asked by Marvel Comics to write a Spider-Man story, I said to my brother, 'That’s my closure on the trauma.'"

But, thanks to a conversation with director Sam Mendes, Iannucci wasn't quite finished with superheroes after all. "I was about to do The Death of Stalin and Sam had just come from James Bond, telling me what it's like being an Oscar-winning theatrical Shakespeare director doing a stunt sequence. I said, 'Oh, there’s a comedy right there.'

"Then we thought, 'Which franchise would it be?' Well, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was at its height. Both of us being lovers of cinema, the question we were both quietly asking each other was: 'Is it killing cinema?' You can’t move for superheroes now. That was the start of it."

Succession writer Jon Brown, who'd worked with Iannucci on Veep and the sci-fi series Avenue 5, was brought on as showrunner and co-creator. "We were shooting Avenue 5 during Marvel's peak. Whenever you wanted a guest actor they'd say, 'I've been in a green room for two months shouting at monsters that I don’t see.' That was happening all over London."

The full comic potential of CGI is explored in The Franchise, but also the mental turmoil undergone by those making the movie. "We talked to experienced first assistant directors," Iannucci says, "and young directors who worked on one film and then put in their will, 'If I do another one, put me to sleep.'"

Such a role is taken by Daniel Brühl, an actor who has actually been in a Marvel film (Captain America: Civil War).

In The Franchise, he plays existentially challenged European director Eric. "I heard about being an indie director [on a superhero film]," Iannucci says. "You’re given free rein for about three quarters of the process then you’re just ejected, and they finish it for you and go and reshoot what they don’t like."

Iannucci has been chipping away at pomposity and hypocrisy for 40 years – so while his satire is funny, does it actually change anything? "An exaggerated satire has become the norm," he admits.

"I’m watching the American elections, and seeing not just Trump but his campaign team exaggerate everything. It’s not to ask us to actually believe it, but to like the sound of it so much that we will still support him. That really is the ultimate superhero storyline, isn't it? The fight between truth and unreality."

The Franchise premieres on Sky and NOW on Monday 21st October 2024.

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