“I couldn’t possibly comment,” laughs Dame Pippa Harris when Deadline asks the British producer if she recognizes any colleagues among the hideous and hilarious characters in her latest series, The Franchise. Armando Iannucci’s HBO satire, going behind the scenes of a stodgy superhero franchise known as Tecto, has something for everyone who feels even slightly disenfranchised working inside the film and TV content machine.
There’s Richard E Grant’s Peter, an anti-woke thesp who is equal parts pompous and tempestuous as he embodies Tecto’s nemesis. Or what about Eric? Daniel Brühl’s deep-thinking director, who says things like, “The day hath come when the suits flutter down from the trees,” when executives visit set. Talking of whom, Pat Shannon (Darren Goldstein) is a sharply observed monster of a studio boss, who has no shame in intimidating toiling underlings at the alter of a washroom urinal.
‘The Franchise’
Harris may be too polite to admit to bumping into facsimiles of these characters during her 35-year career, but she admits that “everyone brought little bits of detail to the party.” Ultimately, she says The Franchise, for all its caustic observations about the absurdity of making movies, is a loving portrait of the business. It’s a “generous-hearted show,” she says, that seeks to “poke fun” rather than prostrate Marvel or any other cinematic universe. Apart from anything, HBO is a sister to DC in the Warner Bros. Discovery family.
The Franchise opens with a dizzying single shot, in which you walk the set with new girl Dag, the third assistant director played by Lolly Adefope. It’s an important introduction to the Maximum Studios workplace and is the first scene Sam Mendes has committed to celluloid for television. Harris, who co-founded Neal Street Productions alongside the Oscar-winning director, says it was important to Mendes to direct the pilot. He concocted the idea for The Franchise with Iannucci after what Harris describes as the “pain and glory” of James Bond. Succession writer Jon Brown was brought in to make the vision a reality.
“Sam’s able to effortlessly corral and direct that number of characters on screen, which sounds simplistic, but actually it’s incredibly difficult,” Harris says of her creative partner, who appears to have developed a taste for TV. “He relished the fact that you can create something and you can see a cut of it within a few weeks … Television is much more immediate.”
We are speaking in a corner of Elstree Studios, where Neal Street is shooting Hamnet, Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of a Maggie O’Farrell novel that imagines the story of William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes following the loss of her only son. The Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal picture is part of a tapestry of projects that have made 2024 one of the busiest periods in Neal Street’s 21-year history. The All3Media-backed company has recently wrapped The Magic Faraway Tree, an Enid Blyton adaptation that had eluded Harris for 17 years, and in the space of around 10 days opened The Hills of California on Broadway and The Lehman Trilogy in the West End. Neal Street’s theatre slate is overseen by co-founder Caro Newling.
‘The Hills of California’
This irony of Neal Street’s busy spell is not lost on Harris, who is sensitive to the wider industry slowdown. “It’s been odd this year, because everyone thought that as soon as the strike was over, everything would just bounce back, and it hasn’t really,” Harris reflects. Neal Street was not immune to the issues: The Franchise was shut down during the writer and actor walkouts after recording just its pilot episode. Harris says studios used the hiatus to “take stock” and downsize their slates, but she is upbeat that a corner has been turned in recent months.
Her optimism has its limits. She agrees with The Crown producer Andy Harries, who memorably said that the UK is in danger of becoming a “top-end service industry” to Hollywood at the expense of local shows. Harris’ résumé is bejeweled by British storytelling, from Paul Abbott’s BBC series State of Play, to Shakespeare films The Hollow Crown, and the Oscar-winning triumph 1917. She would like to see these dramas protected, including by expanding the UK’s tax breaks regime.
Harris was instrumental in lobbying the British government for production incentives a decade ago. Back then, she had the ear of teenage friend Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who is now one of Mark Zuckerberg’s top lieutenants at Meta. The pioneering success of the tax breaks suggests that the new Labour government should also be listening when Harris says that they need to be rebalanced to support lower-budget British series.
She explains: “The reason the UK punches above its weight is because we’ve got such amazing writing talent. Writers should have the freedom to write stories that are simply about the UK experience without an eye to whether it’s going to sell around the world. So yes, I think there could be some additional support.”
Harris says Call the Midwife, Neal Street’s BBC series, is an example of a show that struggled to garner international attention initially. More than a decade later, Season 14 lands early next year, work is well underway on Season 15, and the Heidi Thomas-created drama has sold to 200 territories around the world. Harris beams with pride discussing the show, which is now woven into the fabric of British television and has become an incubator for talent such as Emerald Fennel. The series is effectively “always on” meaning it is constantly in a cycle of prep, casting, production, or post.
Harris acknowledges that this is only possible with the BBC’s commitment. She talks fondly of the British broadcaster, having previously served as its head of drama commissioning. At a time when Labour ministers have signaled their intention to explore new funding models for the BBC, Harris remains a firm supporter of the licence fee, adding that the household levy represents “incredible value for money.”
It should not be taken for granted that you can set your watch to Call the Midwife at a time when fandoms gripe about having to wait years between seasons of their favorite shows. Sony Pictures Television Studios president Katherine Pope said this week that the delays are “untenable.” Harris sympathizes with viewer angst, but does not think the issue has got noticeably worse: “There are a lot of shows where you wait sometimes several years before you get the next series, which I think can be frustrating for viewers. There have always been lags, particularly if you’re relying on a key piece of casting.”
Has Neal Street given thought to a Call the Midwife movie? “Yeah, potentially,” Harris replies. “Downton Abbey has made a huge success of the movies … and obviously Peaky Blinders is now doing a movie. Never say never.” She adds that the brand is foundational to Neal Street’s commercial sustainability (the company grew revenues by 40% to £30.7M last year). “It’s been really instrumental in allowing us to keep going,” she adds. “You can’t run a company simply by making single films and short-form serials.”
The Beatles
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Neal Street is gearing up to enter production on Mendes’ grand vision to make four separate theatrical films telling the interconnected stories of the Beatles, one from each band member’s point of view. Deadline revealed the project in February and Harris says writers have now been locked down with a view to production getting underway next summer. Can she reveal the wordsmiths who will bring to life the stories of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr? “No, sorry.” She adds: “It’s a way off yet … I don’t think anyone is expecting these films to come out next year or the year after.”
The movies look set to become a franchise all of their own, which is something of an irony given we have come together to discuss The Franchise. She hopes the HBO series, which debuts on Sky in the UK on October 21, will be renewed for a second season, particularly given it’s “impossible to think of a comedy which, straight out of the gate, everyone thought was a work of genius.” Harris says there are “so many” more stories to tell from the set of Tecto, not that she will be revealing any IRL inspirations anytime soon.