Similar Stories to ‘the Franchise’ Review: What’s The Opposite Of Satire? Hbo’s Comedy Skewering The Movie Business Attempts To Find Out on Bing News

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,” to the empty platitudes about representation in 2023’s “American Fiction.” But don’t look for any of that wit or bite in HBO’s eight-episode series “The Franchise,” which is little more than the TV equivalent of a boiled piece of chicken. “Tropic Thunder” might actually be the better comparison.