[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for the HBO movie “Mountainhead.”]
In “Succession,” the cutthroat Roy household proved able to protecting up even manslaughter to guard their enterprise, however Logan Roy (Brian Cox) himself may blush on the extremes of his tech-mogul counterparts in creator Jesse Armstrong’s HBO follow-up “Mountainhead.”
Whereas Armstrong was on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, he talked about not eager to do one other story of the uber-rich and highly effective following “Succession,” however after reviewing Michael Lewis’ e-book about crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried, after which listening to tech moguls on the “All In” and Lex Fridman podcasts, he couldn’t get the Silicon Valley voices shaping our world out of his head.
Nevertheless it was greater than the best way tech moguls talked, it was the best way they noticed the world and justified their more and more highly effective place in it that led Armstrong to the “Mountainhead” story of 4 tech bros’ weekend getaway and its shocking (murderous) plot twist.
“What I like about it’s taking issues to their logical conclusion — , zero-basing Elon [Musk’s] philosophy with DOGE, ‘Let’s lower every little thing else away and rebuild,’” stated Armstrong of his newest challenge’s darkish second act flip. “Following premises to their logical conclusions is humorous and attention-grabbing to me, and I believe very acceptable for this world. As a result of like how do you find yourself taking away HIV medicine from kids who’re going to die? How the fuck do you get there? Will you get there since you persuade your self that you just’re following some completely logical course of? That’s terrifying. So I knew that I wanted it to enter [another space] morally.”
In “Mountainhead,” the tangible, real-world results of this pondering are the escalating world eruption of violence and chaos ensuing from the generative AI video instruments Venis (Cory Michael Smith) has added to his social media platform Traam which, with its 4 billion customers, has made him the world’s richest man. Whereas there are seen indicators of cognitive dissonance because the 4 buddies soak up every new horrific information alert coming throughout their telephones, the group convinces themselves this chaos is in the end factor, akin to a forest fireplace accelerating the brand new progress course of.
On the podcast, Armstrong indicated he couldn’t know for certain if the tech bros he’s lampooning imagine what they are saying, or whether it is one thing they inform themselves to allow them to sleep at night time, nevertheless it nearly doesn’t matter, as his curiosity was following their logic in justifying the havoc their tech was now wreaked.
“They usually say, ‘From first ideas, what are the primary ideas? What we try to realize right here?’ And for those who begin taking that method and taking a look at it from a comic book perspective, you may get to some humorous and darkish locations,” stated Armstrong.
The darkish place Armstrong is referring to is Venis, Randall (Steve Carell), and Souper (Jason Schwartzman) attempting to homicide the fourth member of their crew, Jeff (Ramy Youssef) after he dares to counsel steps be taken to sluggish the unhinged Venis and the chaos introduced by Traam’s new GenAI instruments. Armstrong stated the homicide plot twist was one he got here to early, because it was the inevitable results of his “following premises to its logical conclusions” train: Killing Jeff, a risk to a AI utopia (and the tech oligarchs’ finest alternative to repair the world’s issues) could be for the better good.
Armstrong had a blast writing the three males debating the morality of the proposed homicide, together with incorporating the philosophies of historical past’s nice thinkers into their argument.
“I believe one of many issues that occurs in that world is pulling on the mantle,” stated Armstrong of the murder-debate scene. “They just like the stoics and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, however I believe a factor folks, particularly males, do is attain for a few of that appealing-looking scent from the best cultural shelf.”
Even girded by their ethical justifications for homicide, the three males repeatedly fail in slapstick vogue earlier than Jeff convinces them of a less-violent means to realize their objective, saving himself by agreeing to promote Venis the AI-anecdote he desperately wants.
The largest shock comes the following morning. Jeff had been the viewers’s sliver of hope that not less than one among these masters of the universe had the center to attempt to cease the world from burning. The viewers would naturally assume that after surviving an evening of his oldest buddies attempting to homicide him, Jeff’s eyes have been now absolutely open. And it’s right here Armstrong delivers his last intestine punch — the ultimate scene of Jeff laughing all of it off and hanging a Machiavellian deal to associate with Venis.
“Tonally, I knew that was the place we’d be quickly after I had a inexperienced mild to [make ‘Mountainhead’],” stated Armstrong of Venis and Jeff’s last scene within the driveway.
Armstrong admits he was nervous his preliminary concepts for the movie’s darkish turns had the potential to be problematic, which is why earlier than sitting down to put in writing the script, he gathered 4 of his “Succession” writers and producers — Jon Brown, Tony Roche, Will Tracy and Lucy Prebble (all of whom obtained govt producer credit on “Mountainhead”) — for a one-week writers’ room to seek out potential holes and discover alternate narrative paths.
“I did a one week super-accelerated ’Is that this gonna work? Am I loopy? What do you suppose?’ [writers’ room],” stated Armstrong of his mini-“Succession” reunion. “We did some thought experiments with what might the worst factor [that could] occur when [Jeff is in the sauna]. So I attempted to entertain the completely different prospects, however I got here out of that room with the identical concept that I went in with and that was the ending of the film. That tone of an lodging being made was what I needed.”
“Mountainhead” is now streaming on HBO Max.
To listen to Jesse Armstrong‘s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast platform.