See Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef in HBO’s ‘Mountainhead’ Trailer

HBO has been fairly tight-lipped about the plot of its forthcoming original film Mountainhead, from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. Up until now, the only concrete details have come from a one-sentence logline that reads, “A group of billionaire friends get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis.”

A trailer for the movie, released Tuesday morning, hints that the international crisis may be — at least partly — the billionaire friends’ fault. The movie finds the quartet — tech executives Randall (Steve Carell), Hugo Van Yalk aka Souper (Jason Schwartzman), Venis (Cory Michael Smith) and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) gathering at the moutaintop retreat that gives the movie its title. News reports hint at “panic buying and violence,” as Youssef’s Jeff says, and conflict escalates across the globe.

Jeff also accuses Venis’ “platform” — the parallel seems to be Meta, in this case — of spreading “unfalsifiable deepfakes, massive fraud, market instability” as Randall and Souper seem increasingly uncomfortable. Watch the trailer below.

HBO announced Armstrong’s film — his first as a director and his first script since Succession concluded its Emmy-dominating run in 2023 — in January, and from there it was more or less a sprint to its May 31 premiere date. The four stars came aboard in early March, and filming wrapped about a month later after shooting in Park City, Utah. Mountainhead will premiere on the final day of Emmy eligibility for the 2024-25 season.

Along with the four leads, the film also stars Hadley Robinson, Andy Daly, Ali Kinkade, Daniel Oreskes, David Thompson, Amie MacKenzie and Ava Kostia.

Armstrong wrote and directed the movie and executive produces with Frank Rich, Lucy Prebble, Jon Brown, Tony Roche, Will Tracy, Mark Mylod and Jill Footlick.