“Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong is making his directorial debut with “Mountainhead,” starring Steve Carell, Jason Scwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef, as billionaires.
HBO Executive Vice President of Production Janet Graham Borba describes the plot, which is set over one weekend at a mountain mansion in the Deer Crest neighborhood.
“The guys are coming together at a time of a little bit of unrest and chaos and they each are bringing a little bit of a personal struggle to the weekend,” Borba said. “If you’ve watched ‘Succession,’ you’ll have a sense of the flavor of Jesse Armstrong’s approach to wit, intelligence, power, social consequence but also just personal relationships.”
Borba said the film was produced in an unprecedented timeline.
She said Armstrong pitched the film to HBO in December 2024, wrote the screenplay in January, and shot the movie in March.
“This has not been done, not by us, and not at this level, by anyone that I’m aware of,” Borba said. “You can do lots of sort of little indie movies where you’re going to shoot for five days. You can do those quickly. But a show written by someone of that prominence, with that level of artistic care, with that caliber of cash and what I think you will be impressed by in terms of production value and storytelling, not this quickly.”
The film is primarily set at the 21,000-square-foot home in Deer Crest, right across the Wasatch County line. The home was listed for $65 million last year, a record single-family home price in Utah, and includes a private gondola to the slopes of Bald Eagle Mountain at Deer Valley Resort.
“Mountainhead” premieres on cable on HBO and the company’s streaming platform HBO Max at 6 p.m. MT Saturday, May 31.
Park City Film will screen “Mountainhead” for free June 5 at the Jim Santy Auditorium at the Park City Library. There will be a discussion afterward with production supervisor Brooke Redmon and Utah Film Commission Production Manager Derek Mellus. A link to tickets can be found here.
