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‘Succession’ Creator’s Newest Project Becomes Most-Watched HBO Original Film

The last most-watched original film was ‘Bad Education’ at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong’s newest project is the most-watched HBO Original Film since Bad Education in 2020. Armstrong’s movie Mountainhead premiered on Saturday and garnered 1.3 million viewers as of Wednesday, according to Warner Bros. Discovery, surpassing director Cory Finley’s Bad Education starring Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney. Mountainhead is centered around a group of billionaire tech bros who go on a luxury retreat for a weekend of poker as the AI feature in one of the tech bros’ apps causes global chaos. “It seems incredibly newsworthy and up Jesse’s alley in terms of the kind of writing he’s done in the past,” said Frank Rich, one of the film’s executive producer’s. The multiple Emmy-winning director’s movie came on the heels of his incredibly successful Succession run, which had 2.9 million viewers tuning into the show’s finale in May 2023. Mountainhead stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith as the group of insufferable tech elites holed up in a multi-million-dollar mansion. The film was written and directed by Armstrong, who also served as one of its executive producers alongside many other Succession producers, and took only a little over six months to complete.