Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety
Speaker 1: Intelligence Platform. Imagine a future that may or may not
Speaker 1: be too far from now, in which an AI video
Speaker 1: generator is capable of cranking out an entire movie, its
Speaker 1: script derived from a large language model, fed nothing but
Speaker 1: the entire run of the HBO series Succession, and every
Speaker 1: article from the past six months written about the reigning
Speaker 1: tech titans of our time, Zuckerberg, musk Altman. Maybe a
Speaker 1: dash of Peter Teel that may be the best way
Speaker 1: to explain Mountainhead, a new movie debuting May thirty first
Speaker 1: on HBO from Jesse Armstrong, the creator of Succession, the
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed series from the same network. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts to share about this one. Stick around.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Strictly Business, where this week I'm going
Speaker 1: deep on the new movie Mountain Head. In stark contrast
Speaker 1: to the typically glacial speed with which most movies or
Speaker 1: TV are developed, the film was conceived, pitched, and rushed
Speaker 1: through production in a matter of months because Armstrong felt
Speaker 1: strongly that his story would resonate most reflecting the current
Speaker 1: moment in our culture while we're still in it and
Speaker 1: does it ever, You don't have to work in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley these days to be exposed to the constant churn
Speaker 1: of headlines describing the Frankenstein like potential of a technology
Speaker 1: that allows just about anyone to conjure up hyper realistic
Speaker 1: images of anything their minds can imagine with lowered barriers
Speaker 1: to cost or distribution. But what's more, Mountainhead is being
Speaker 1: released at exactly the moment when AI fears must be
Speaker 1: kicking into overdrive. Look at what's just transpired in the
Speaker 1: past few weeks, starting with Google's release of VO three,
Speaker 1: the most sophisticated video generation tool to hit the mass
Speaker 1: market to date. If that's not scary enough, Open Ai
Speaker 1: just unveiled the partnership with former Apple design guru Johnny
Speaker 1: Ive to release new AI power devices. Meanwhile, Meta is
Speaker 1: reportedly running into trouble developing its own Lama LM, invoking
Speaker 1: fears of what measures the company could take in order
Speaker 1: to catch up. How serendipitous for Armstrong then, that his
Speaker 1: decision to make Mountainhead a rush job has resulted in
Speaker 1: a movie that could not have picked a scarier time
Speaker 1: to mine our anxieties about AI and the people with
Speaker 1: the power to deploy it in pursuit of profit. But
Speaker 1: Mountainhead is also a triumph of timing of the comedic variety,
Speaker 1: because while the plot might sound like a twenty first
Speaker 1: century spin on nineteen seven and these disaster movies, it
Speaker 1: also manages to be uproariously funny. A masterclass in satire
Speaker 1: anchored by a quartette of actors capable of delivering lines
Speaker 1: with dead pant perfection. Mountainhead is set in an opulent
Speaker 1: mansion nestled in the snowy mountains of Utah, where four
Speaker 1: billionaire tech moguls have gathered for a few days of
Speaker 1: R and R. The timing of their vacation is fortuitous,
Speaker 1: as they're fairly isolated from the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: which happens to be descending into anarchy at the same time.
Speaker 1: What's worse, several of these friends just might be responsible
Speaker 1: for this chaos, and as they watch the chaos unfold
Speaker 1: from the safe distance of their mobile phones, not even
Speaker 1: quality bro time or luxury amenities can keep reality entirely
Speaker 1: at bay. As the impending apocalypse turns the heat up
Speaker 1: on them. They start to turn on each other.
Speaker 2: Guys, is this on every channel? There have been a
Speaker 2: number of occurrences since your launch. You and officials are
Speaker 2: now openly attributing the recent uptake and ethnic tention to
Speaker 2: powerful new generative AI tools unveiled last week on TRAM.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, this is not on you venus,
Speaker 2: Obviously it's not on me. Why would you even say that.
Speaker 1: Your platform is inflamed, vobal situation, weapons, stock piling, some
Speaker 1: bank fronts, violence, chaos, and people are dying.
Speaker 2: You're not real and don't explode like that. Head. Don't
Speaker 2: explode like that?
Speaker 1: You know how to heads explode. At the center of
Speaker 1: the narrative, a Mountainhead is a fictional social network known
Speaker 1: as Tram, which has just been supercharged with AI content
Speaker 1: generation tools so powerful that engagement on the platform explodes.
Speaker 1: But there's an unfortunate side effect of this innovation, too.
Speaker 1: Many bad actors start to create incendiary deep fakes, sparking
Speaker 1: violence all over the globe. Part of what makes fountain
Speaker 1: Head compelling is that as the action unfolds and we
Speaker 1: learn more about each character from their actions and what
Speaker 1: they say, it sparks for the viewer and internal debate
Speaker 1: which of these characters is the most morally repugnant. The
Speaker 1: competition is stiff, starting with Hugo played by Jason Schwartzman,
Speaker 1: the owner of Mountainhead. Despite the fact he's the laggard
Speaker 1: of this foursome because he carried around the shame of
Speaker 1: having a fortune in the sub billion dollar range. He
Speaker 1: might be the most sympathetic of the bunch were he
Speaker 1: clearly not using the whole get together as an excuse
Speaker 1: to get any of them to bankroll his new wellness apventure.
Speaker 1: And what's come clear in time is he's desperate enough
Speaker 1: to do anything to get their validation, let alone their money.
Speaker 1: Says a lot about Mountainhead that it hands a veteran
Speaker 1: comedic genius like Schwartzman what is easily his best role
Speaker 1: since the movie that gave him his breakthrough way back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, Rushmore. And yet the movie might
Speaker 1: belong to the least known of its four lead actors,
Speaker 1: Corey Michael Smith, who has handed the juiciest role as Venice,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the fiction Tram. He is two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty billion dollar net worth, makes him the richest
Speaker 1: of the group. Venice is something of a mashup of
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and Musk, melding the formers move fast and break
Speaker 1: things ethos to grow his user base at all costs.
Speaker 1: With the latter's robotic ruthlessness. Venice's obscene wealth justifies an
Speaker 1: unbridled narcissism that reflects our worst fears of tech moguls.
Speaker 1: He repeatedly comments that other people on Earth just aren't
Speaker 1: on the same plane of existence with himself or his buddies.
Speaker 1: It's fitting for someone who's profiting from manufacturing images that
Speaker 1: blur the lines between truth and fiction. He doesn't see
Speaker 1: other people as real. But what's interesting here is Armstrong
Speaker 1: doesn't right him as just a one dimensional monster. As
Speaker 1: the technology he's unleashed greeks havoc. Venice is invested with
Speaker 1: just enough self consciousness to be a little horrified by himself,
Speaker 1: just not to the point where he could be bothered
Speaker 1: to filter his solib selic impulses. If Smith is a
Speaker 1: stand in for Zuckerberg, then Steve Carell is something of
Speaker 1: a Peter Thield type, an older brother advisor figure who
Speaker 1: he learned was Venice's first investor, but Correll's character is
Speaker 1: trying to hide a secret from his friends, which is
Speaker 1: that he's dying of some unspecified incurable medical condition that
Speaker 1: gives him just years to live. Of course, he's too
Speaker 1: much of a narcissist to accept that, and he channels
Speaker 1: his denial into the belief that tram will eventually evolve
Speaker 1: into supporting transhumanism, a technology that will allow his soul
Speaker 1: to live forever once he's shuffled his mortal coil, and
Speaker 1: that delusion puts him at odds with the last character, Jeff,
Speaker 1: played by romy Yusef. Jeff seems to be possibly both
Speaker 1: the most conscientious and deplorable character. He seems the most
Speaker 1: troubled by the circumstances playing out in the real world,
Speaker 1: yet not so troubled that he won't be rushed into
Speaker 1: a deal with Venice to sell him his own special
Speaker 1: blend of AI, which trams Board believes will help consumers
Speaker 1: distinguish the difference between real and fake video. It's like
Speaker 1: Jeff has the antidote to the AI poison Venice is
Speaker 1: practically killing the world with, but won't release it because
Speaker 1: he has overdosed on the toxic masculinity that keeps these
Speaker 1: supposed friends, in a constant state of competitive one upmanship, are.
Speaker 2: The smartest men in America. We literally have the resources
Speaker 2: to take over the world.
Speaker 3: This ugly death traphouse might have just become humanity's global
Speaker 3: HQ boom.
Speaker 1: The President once the speak to us, guys, we could
Speaker 1: actually do this. I can handle Leargentina and Paraguay.
Speaker 2: We could probably buy Haiti or Belgium.
Speaker 1: Those chocolatey assholes in the mouths of anyone else on earth.
Speaker 1: The machinations about global domination would be delusional in enough
Speaker 1: to merit them a ticket to the looney bin. But
Speaker 1: the sick joke of Mountainhead is that the these characters
Speaker 1: are so powerful that they're not entirely delusional. Listening to
Speaker 1: them talk about their ability to fix the world as
Speaker 1: casually as they would be repairing a car will surely
Speaker 1: bring to mind musks many public musings from the recently
Speaker 1: concluded Doge phase of his career, in which he convinced
Speaker 1: the current president to essentially hand over the keys to
Speaker 1: the US government.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break, but when we return,
Speaker 3: more on Mountainhead and the inevitable comparisons that will be
Speaker 3: made to Succession, and we are backed and I'm talking
Speaker 3: about Mountainhead. A very interesting movie coming to HBO May
Speaker 3: thirty first, and HBO max at that the extra resonance
Speaker 3: mountain Head achieves from being released at the same time
Speaker 3: as the world it's trying to reflect is also what
Speaker 3: separates it from Succession. Sure, there were flashes of moment
Speaker 3: that seemed ripped from the headlines of the media trade
Speaker 3: publications in Succession, but it's largely drawn from the exploits
Speaker 3: of the Murdochs and Redstones, many of which preceded the
Speaker 3: show by some years. Mountainhead isn't a sequel or spin
Speaker 3: off to Succession, but it also kind of is not
Speaker 3: a sequel in the conventional sense of the word, in
Speaker 3: that it doesn't continue the mythology of the Roy family
Speaker 3: media empire in any way. But it is a sequel
Speaker 3: in the sense that Mountainhead's characters feel like they belong
Speaker 3: in the same world. Armstrong could have brought the world
Speaker 3: of Succession and mountain Head together in any number of
Speaker 3: cute crossovery kind of ways. I really half expected Kendall
Speaker 3: Roy to wander into any particular scene. Honestly, Armstrong could
Speaker 3: have swapped out Jason Schwartzman's character for Kendall, and this
Speaker 3: movie would have held up.
Speaker 1: I've always marveled it the way each installment of Succession
Speaker 1: was something of a bottle episode contained to the rooms
Speaker 1: of a single building sometimes, but it's a credit to
Speaker 1: Armstrong that there's nothing claustrophobic about this. To the contrary,
Speaker 1: it gives the action of more coiled powers if the
Speaker 1: characters gather steam by bouncing off the walls and each other.
Speaker 1: By squeezing the narrative a Mountainhead entirely into one mountain
Speaker 1: side mansion. The movie operates by a similar dynamic, so
Speaker 1: much so that I honestly think Armstrong could have, maybe
Speaker 1: should still put this story on a Broadway stage. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to overstate the similarities between the shows either,
Speaker 1: because Mountainhead is distinctive in a bunch of key ways.
Speaker 1: Succession is more of an actor showcase. The family drama
Speaker 1: lends itself to more emotional depth. It tilts more towards
Speaker 1: drama than comedy the way fountain Head does. And I
Speaker 1: also want to make a distinction between Armstrong's two creations
Speaker 1: because fair warning, I don't think every Succession fan is
Speaker 1: going to like Mountainhead. Yes, it's situated in the same world,
Speaker 1: but there are some tonal differences that Succession fans looking
Speaker 1: for a spin off movie might be disappointed by. I
Speaker 1: don't want to ruin the movie with a spoiler, but
Speaker 1: be ready for the story to take a turn. It's
Speaker 1: actually such a departure from this Succession world as to
Speaker 1: almost be like crossing over into magical realism. And I
Speaker 1: don't think some viewers are going to be ready to
Speaker 1: take that leap. It's like success It's like Succession, and
Speaker 1: that it's dark and funny at the same time. But
Speaker 1: this one just gets darker and darker and funnier and
Speaker 1: crazier in a way it just wouldn't make sense for
Speaker 1: Succession to do. But that's also the fun of Mountainhead.
Speaker 1: It's like watching a car slip into a whole other
Speaker 1: gear you didn't know Armstrong could drive. Strangely, though Mountainhead
Speaker 1: gets more and more absurd as the story unfolds, it
Speaker 1: also captures the precariousness of the moment we as a
Speaker 1: societ society find ourselves in today. It conjures up just
Speaker 1: the kind of worst case scenarios that come to mind
Speaker 1: every time you read about AI or reckless moguls. That's
Speaker 1: enough for me for this week. Thanks for listening in.
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