AfterSuccessionwas hailed as one of the greatest drama shows of all time after its brilliant fourth season conclusion, it was only a matter of time until creatorJesse Armstrongunveiled his next project. Armstrong’s directorial debut, the HBO original filmMountainhead, tells an original story that follows four billionaires who influence the tech space, who spend a weekend together in an isolated vacation resort. Given the dark comedy, snappy dialogue, anti-capitalist themes, and allusions to recent events,Mountainheadfeels designed to be enjoyed by fans ofSuccession.Armstrong briefly considered makingMountainheadpart of theSuccessionuniverse,but decided that “the tone of it’s actually kind of different,” and that he would “be tonally misleading people” if he merged the continuity.
Mountainheadfollows the social media owner Ven Parish (Cory Michael Smith), the artificial intelligence developer Jeff Abredazi (Ramy Youssef), the dying group mentor Randall Garrett (Steve Carell), and their comparatively less wealthy friend Hugo Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), whohave a collective net worth of over $371 billion.Although the parallels that Armstrong draws to recent events involving tech billionaires are unnerving, it’s a subject that he addressed in the final season ofSuccession, in which the GoJo streaming CEO Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) took over Waystar Royco, ending Kendall Roy’s (Jeremy Strong) plan to lead his father’s company.Armstrong thought that Matsson would “fit pretty well” into theMountainheadcrew, as they shared a similarly dangerous attitude regarding world events. Similar to Matsson, the characters inMountainheadrefuse to take accountability for their actions, even when the use of AI on social media leads to global chaos.
Armstrong said that “it just felt wrong” to set the two projects in the same universe, as he did not want viewers to expect that a character like Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) would show up on a television screen in the background. Despite their tonal and thematic parallels,Mountainheadcan’t take place in theSuccessiontimeline because ofthe major events at the end of the fourth season; after the collapse of Waystar, the consequences of a shocking Presidential race, and a major scandal revolving around the company’s cruise department, it wouldn’t make sense for these instances to be ignored by the characters inMountainhead, who would have likely made conversation about topics that are so prevalent within their industry. The differences may be a result of the two different historical controversies that clearly inspired both works; whileSuccessionhas been perceived to be a satire of the Murdoch family crisis amidst the evolution of Fox, the characters inMountainheadfeel similar to tech and social media influencers likeMark Zuckerberg,Elon Musk, andJeff Bezos.
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It was best to keepMountainheadas an original property, asSuccessionended on such a strong note that it would be unfortunate to dilute its ending. Whilethe legacy of many great shows, such as24, The X-Files,andDexter, has suffered as a result of poorly-received spin-offs,Successionhas retained its power within culture due to its poetic, tragic ending. The ambiguity about what happened to Roman, Kendall, and Shiv (Sarah Snook) is what makes the ending ofSuccessionso heartbreaking, but that doesn’t mean that Armstrong can’t utilize the same team that brought it to life; many of the same crew members, casting directors, location scouts, and post-production teams that worked onSuccessionretained their relationship with Armstrong to work onMountainhead.
Although they both offer a scathing satire about the ignorance of those in power,Mountainheadis more experimental and confined compared toSuccession, as it does not have the same complexity.Successionplayed out like a Shakespearean tragedy, in which audiences were forced to both sympathize and detest a family whose quibbles with one another shaped the future of America; inMountainhead, Armstrong looks athow easy it is for powerful people to succumb to savagery, as they know they will never face the consequences.Mountainheadis darkly amusing and shockingly incisive, and while it may feel like an entertaining spiritual sequel to what was accomplished inSuccession, Armstrong made the right choice to keep them part of two separate universes.
Mountainhead
