Latest news with #Mountainhead
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
2025 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Television Movie
We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2025 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 12 to June 23, with the official Emmy nominations announced Tuesday, July 15. Afterwards, final voting commences on August 18 and ends the night of August 27. The 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are set to take place on Sunday, September 14, and air live on CBS at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT. The State of the Race This is not meant to be rude to the film 'Am I Ok?,' a Sundance 2022 premiere that finally made it onto HBO Max last summer, but do voters know that it's an Emmys contender? There are actual Outstanding TV Movie contenders that have campaigned so much harder, so it is a surprise to see the Dakota Johnson-led comedy still place so high on prognosticators' lists. In fact, HBO Max itself has never been nominated in this category before. HBO proper hasn't even been nominated for TV Movie the past two years. More from IndieWire 'The Bear' Review: Season 4 Is Another Sweet, Stirring, and Inconsistent Dish Amazon Prime Video to Other Streamers: You Need Us That is likely set to change with new HBO contender 'Mountainhead,' which continued the risky strategy of premiering at the very end of the Emmys eligibility window, but did so in a smarter way, putting it on voters' radars the second Emmys season started, and impressing them with how quickly it was made. It is also written and directed by 'Succession' creator Jesse Armstrong, who already has several Emmys to his name. 'Mountainhead' is one of four films that are on just about every nominations predictions list, with two other contenders being obvious enough for the general public to guess. First is 'Rebel Ridge,' one of the biggest Netflix films of the year, which has taken star Aaron Pierre to a new level of success where he's even getting James Bond casting rumors leveled at him. Interesting too that the streaming service did not submit 'Carry-On,' a similarly popular hit action film that premiered closer to the holidays, as it would have probably cannibalized Netflix's chances of winning this category. The other movie that seems bound for an Emmy nomination is 'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,' the fourth Bridget Jones film starring Renée Zellweger. Though it premiered on Peacock in the United States, the movie was actually a big hit abroad. The Emmy race for Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie is pretty thin too, so Zellweger, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the first film, is likely to have an Emmy nomination that will draw more voters toward watching the sequel. Less on the public's radar, but a staple of the most recent TV awards is the film 'Out of My Mind,' streaming on Disney+. The YA novel adaptation about a young girl with cerebral palsy trying to find her voice was a sleeper hit at Sundance 2024, and has since won a Peabody Award and been one of the Television Academy honorees this year. The film especially has great word-of-mouth, eliciting tears from the majority of the audience at its official for your consideration event at the Academy Museum. In terms of what could actually be nominated in the slot people predict 'Am I Ok?' will be in, look no further than Tina Mabry's 'The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat.' Not only does it star Uzo Aduba, who is a TV Academy favorite, it comes from reigning category winner Hulu. Predicted Nominees:'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy' (Peacock)'Mountainhead' (HBO)'Out of My Mind' (Disney+)'Rebel Ridge' (Netflix)'The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat' (Hulu) Contenders:'Another Simple Favor' (Prime Video)'G20' (Prime Video)'Star Trek: Section 31' (Paramount+) In a Perfect World:'It's What's Inside' (Netflix)'The Other, Gold' (Tubi)'Sweethearts' (HBO Max) More Limited Series and TV Movie Category Predictions:Outstanding Limited or Anthology SeriesOutstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a MovieOutstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a MovieOutstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a MovieOutstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie View IndieWire's full set of predictions for the 77th Emmy Year's Winner: 'Quiz Lady'Still Eligible: Streak: None of the networks have had back-to-back wins since the category became Outstanding Television Movie, and left out anthology entries like the Emmy winning episodes of 'Black Mirror' and 'Sherlock.' However, Hulu has really made a splash in this space the past two years, so it is entirely possible one of its films continues the Ineligible Films: 'Carry-On' (the film was not submitted for Emmys consideration); 'Deep Cover' (the film will not premiere in time to be eligible); 'Swiped' (the film will not premiere in time to be eligible) Best of IndieWire 2023 Emmy Predictions: Who Will Win at the Primetime Emmy Awards? 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I have a lot of sympathy for Elon Musk': Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on his tech bros AI satire Mountainhead
When he gets to his London office on the morning this piece is published, Jesse Armstrong will read it in print, or not at all. Though the building has wifi, he doesn't use it. 'If you're a procrastinator, which most writers are, it's just a killer.' Online rabbit holes swallow whole days. 'In the end, it's better to be left with the inadequacies of your thoughts.' He gives himself a mock pep talk. ''It's just you and me now, brain.'' Today, the showrunner of Succession and co-creator of Peep Show is back at home, in walking distance of his workspace. He could be any London dad: 54, salt-and-pepper beard, summer striped T-shirt. But staying offline could feel like a statement too, given Armstrong is also the writer-director of Mountainhead, a film about tech bros. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Open AI's Sam Altman, guru financiers Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen: all these and more are mixed up in the movie's characters, sharing a comic hang in a ski mansion. Outside, an AI launched by one of the group has sparked global chaos. Inside, there is snippy friction about the intra-billionaire pecking order. Mountainhead feels like a pulled-back curtain. But Armstrong also resisted another rabbit hole: spending time in Silicon Valley for research. He tried that kind of thing before. Contrary to rumour, Succession never did involve backdoor chats with the children of Rupert Murdoch. Once the show became a phenomenon, though, he did meet with masters of finance and corporate media, picking their brains for insights at luxe New York restaurants. 'And they'd be charismatic, and namedrop the 20 most famous people in the world, and I'd feel this buzz of excitement by association. Then later I'd look at my notes, and what they'd actually said read like complete inane bullshit. 'Make the move!' 'Be the balls!'' So Armstrong returned to his office and, more generally, his kind. 'I'm a writer,' he says, 'and a writer type. And I'm happy with other writer types.' In America, when Succession exploded, you could sense an assumption the mind behind it must be an English Aaron Sorkin: a slick character as glamorous as the world he wrote about. Instead, here was the dry figure who compares making Mountainhead to an early job at budget supermarket Kwik Save. (Both, he says, boiled down to managing workload.) Rather than stalk Sam Altman, he read biographies and hoovered up podcasts. Amid the oligarchs' tales of favourite Roman emperors, he kept finding a common thread: a wilful positivity about their own effect on the world. 'And it must be delightful to really believe, 'You know what? It's going to be fine. AI's going to cure cancer, and don't worry about burning up the planet powering the AI to do it, because we'll just fix that too.'' Part of the trick, he says, is perspective. At a certain level, money and power give life the feel of an eternal view from a private plane. 'Whereas reality is standing in the road, dodging cars, thinking 'Oh God! This is fucking terrifying!'' Success and Succession have not made Armstrong an optimist. But they did give him the professional heft to direct Mountainhead as well as write it, and to do so at unprecedented pace. Film and TV move achingly slowly; it was last November that he decided he wanted to make a movie about the junction of AI, crypto and libertarian politics. By May, he was preparing for it to come out. He says now he wanted Mountainhead to be 'a bobsleigh run. Short, and slightly bitter, and once you're on, you're on.' His voice quickens recalling a first meeting with Steve Carell, who he wanted to play Randall, 'the group's dark money Gandalf'. This was January. Without a script, Armstrong could only tell the actor the story he'd loosely planned. Carell sat in silence. 'I thought, 'Well, this has gone very badly.'' Then he said yes. 'At which point it was like, 'Fuck. This is actually going to happen. Now I have to write it.'' By March, the film was being shot in a 21,000 sq ft mansion in Deer Valley, Utah, then on the market for $65m. Carell aside, the cast included Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman. For Armstrong, directing his first feature on a berserk turnaround was made easier by a deep fondness for actors. Standing in front of a camera, he says, paralyses him with self-consciousness. 'So I honestly find what they do magical.' His own lack of talent as a performer proved important to the younger Armstrong. Between 1995 and 1997, he worked as an assistant to Labour MP Doug Henderson. It was an interesting time to have the job, with Tony Blair about to enter Downing Street. Is there a Sliding Doors world where a rising star assistant becomes an MP himself? One where, by now, Jesse Armstrong is home secretary? He shakes his head for several seconds. 'I just wasn't good at the job. Fundamentally, I didn't understand politics.' He knows it sounds odd, having later written for insidery Westminster comedy The Thick of It. 'But I couldn't do the acting. I didn't get it. I always thought like a writer, so in meetings where I should have been building my career, I'd just be thinking, 'That's weird. That's funny. Why did you say that?'' (Armstrong once wrote for the Guardian about a meeting with then Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, in which she sat under two posters: one a lurid anti-abortion message, the other Garfield.) Instead, he segued into comedy, and soon after Peep Show, the beloved squirm of a sitcom co-written with Sam Bain. At first glance, Succession is the obvious prequel to Mountainhead, a former newspaper empire giving way to tech superpower. But Armstrong sees a closer link between his new film and Peep Show: 'Because it's about men, and male hierarchies, and the pathos of men trying to connect.' He is tickled by the thought of his own story world, in which characters from different projects collide. 'You can see Super Hans arriving at Mountainhead on a scooter, delivering the ketamine.' Then he pauses, suddenly anxious. Could he make sure I'll mention Bain if I talk about Peep Show? 'Because it was always Sam's show as well.' And Hans owed so much to actor Matt King too, he says, 'and then, of course, there's David Mitchell and Robert Webb.' Should Armstrong ever make an Oscar acceptance speech, we will be there a while. Making sure due credit is given is of a piece with his near-pathological modesty. (He is a keen footballer. Which position? 'Terrible.') Being fair-minded matters too. He adds a postscript to his memory of leaving Westminster. 'I'd also say I don't in any way feel superior to people who do make a career in politics. I still believe we need good, professional politicians.' Turning back to Mountainhead, his even-handedness reaches a kind of event horizon. Armstrong , it transpires, feels sorry for Elon Musk. 'Musk has done huge damage in the world, particularly with Doge, but I have a lot of sympathy for him.' The owner of X was brutally bullied as a schoolboy and according to a 2023 biography, had a difficult relationship with his father. 'This is a traumatised human being,' says Armstrong. Still, not every bullied child ends up making apparent Nazi salutes onstage. 'Yeah. That wasn't great.' But there are other sides to Armstrong. For all the hints of bumble and awkwardness, he has also had the discipline to build a stellar career. And the more measured he is in person, the more Mountainhead feels like the work of a grinning Id, rising up to take a scalpel to his subjects, with their pretensions to philosophy, and dark indifference to life. ('I'm so excited about these atrocities,' a character beams as the world goes violently awry.) But his sympathy has its limits. 'I do think the cocoon they're in makes it hard for them to remember other people are actually real. But they've also been quick to give up trying. And some definitely feel the superior person shouldn't have to try anyway.' More to the point, though, Armstrong finds the tech moguls funny. Much of the grimness of a Musk or Thiel is also brilliantly ridiculous: the epic lack of self-knowledge, the thinness of skin. Having studied them as he has, would he expect his real-life models to be enraged by the film? 'Oh no. They'd instantly dismantle it in a way that would be 50% completely fair, and 50% totally facile. But they wouldn't see any truth to it.' Still, Mountainhead is something very rare: a movie that feels as contemporary as TikTok. For Armstrong, after Succession and now this, you might think stories about the moment had become addictive. He frowns. Is a period piece next, in fact? Victorian bonnets? 'Maybe. Genuinely maybe. Because I'm not actually that drawn to ripped-from-the-headlines ideas.' The frown deepens. 'Am I not? I don't know. I'm losing faith in my own answer, because I evidently am. I mean, I'm not going to claim I don't like writing about right now. But honestly, at the same time – I'd be pleased to get out of it.' Mountainhead is available to own digitally now
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I have a lot of sympathy for Elon Musk': Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on his tech bros AI satire Mountainhead
When he gets to his London office on the morning this piece is published, Jesse Armstrong will read it in print, or not at all. Though the building has wifi, he doesn't use it. 'If you're a procrastinator, which most writers are, it's just a killer.' Online rabbit holes swallow whole days. 'In the end, it's better to be left with the inadequacies of your thoughts.' He gives himself a mock pep talk. ''It's just you and me now, brain.'' Today, the showrunner of Succession and co-creator of Peep Show is back at home, in walking distance of his workspace. He could be any London dad: 54, salt-and-pepper beard, summer striped T-shirt. But staying offline could feel like a statement too, given Armstrong is also the writer-director of Mountainhead, a film about tech bros. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Open AI's Sam Altman, guru financiers Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen: all these and more are mixed up in the movie's characters, sharing a comic hang in a ski mansion. Outside, an AI launched by one of the group has sparked global chaos. Inside, there is snippy friction about the intra-billionaire pecking order. Mountainhead feels like a pulled-back curtain. But Armstrong also resisted another rabbit hole: spending time in Silicon Valley for research. He tried that kind of thing before. Contrary to rumour, Succession never did involve backdoor chats with the children of Rupert Murdoch. Once the show became a phenomenon, though, he did meet with masters of finance and corporate media, picking their brains for insights at luxe New York restaurants. 'And they'd be charismatic, and namedrop the 20 most famous people in the world, and I'd feel this buzz of excitement by association. Then later I'd look at my notes, and what they'd actually said read like complete inane bullshit. 'Make the move!' 'Be the balls!'' So Armstrong returned to his office and, more generally, his kind. 'I'm a writer,' he says, 'and a writer type. And I'm happy with other writer types.' In America, when Succession exploded, you could sense an assumption the mind behind it must be an English Aaron Sorkin: a slick character as glamorous as the world he wrote about. Instead, here was the dry figure who compares making Mountainhead to an early job at budget supermarket Kwik Save. (Both, he says, boiled down to managing workload.) Rather than stalk Sam Altman, he read biographies and hoovered up podcasts. Amid the oligarchs' tales of favourite Roman emperors, he kept finding a common thread: a wilful positivity about their own effect on the world. 'And it must be delightful to really believe, 'You know what? It's going to be fine. AI's going to cure cancer, and don't worry about burning up the planet powering the AI to do it, because we'll just fix that too.'' Part of the trick, he says, is perspective. At a certain level, money and power give life the feel of an eternal view from a private plane. 'Whereas reality is standing in the road, dodging cars, thinking 'Oh God! This is fucking terrifying!'' Success and Succession have not made Armstrong an optimist. But they did give him the professional heft to direct Mountainhead as well as write it, and to do so at unprecedented pace. Film and TV move achingly slowly; it was last November that he decided he wanted to make a movie about the junction of AI, crypto and libertarian politics. By May, he was preparing for it to come out. He says now he wanted Mountainhead to be 'a bobsleigh run. Short, and slightly bitter, and once you're on, you're on.' His voice quickens recalling a first meeting with Steve Carell, who he wanted to play Randall, 'the group's dark money Gandalf'. This was January. Without a script, Armstrong could only tell the actor the story he'd loosely planned. Carell sat in silence. 'I thought, 'Well, this has gone very badly.'' Then he said yes. 'At which point it was like, 'Fuck. This is actually going to happen. Now I have to write it.'' By March, the film was being shot in a 21,000 sq ft mansion in Deer Valley, Utah, then on the market for $65m. Carell aside, the cast included Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman. For Armstrong, directing his first feature on a berserk turnaround was made easier by a deep fondness for actors. Standing in front of a camera, he says, paralyses him with self-consciousness. 'So I honestly find what they do magical.' His own lack of talent as a performer proved important to the younger Armstrong. Between 1995 and 1997, he worked as an assistant to Labour MP Doug Henderson. It was an interesting time to have the job, with Tony Blair about to enter Downing Street. Is there a Sliding Doors world where a rising star assistant becomes an MP himself? One where, by now, Jesse Armstrong is home secretary? He shakes his head for several seconds. 'I just wasn't good at the job. Fundamentally, I didn't understand politics.' He knows it sounds odd, having later written for insidery Westminster comedy The Thick of It. 'But I couldn't do the acting. I didn't get it. I always thought like a writer, so in meetings where I should have been building my career, I'd just be thinking, 'That's weird. That's funny. Why did you say that?'' (Armstrong once wrote for the Guardian about a meeting with then Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, in which she sat under two posters: one a lurid anti-abortion message, the other Garfield.) Instead, he segued into comedy, and soon after Peep Show, the beloved squirm of a sitcom co-written with Sam Bain. At first glance, Succession is the obvious prequel to Mountainhead, a former newspaper empire giving way to tech superpower. But Armstrong sees a closer link between his new film and Peep Show: 'Because it's about men, and male hierarchies, and the pathos of men trying to connect.' He is tickled by the thought of his own story world, in which characters from different projects collide. 'You can see Super Hans arriving at Mountainhead on a scooter, delivering the ketamine.' Then he pauses, suddenly anxious. Could he make sure I'll mention Bain if I talk about Peep Show? 'Because it was always Sam's show as well.' And Hans owed so much to actor Matt King too, he says, 'and then, of course, there's David Mitchell and Robert Webb.' Should Armstrong ever make an Oscar acceptance speech, we will be there a while. Making sure due credit is given is of a piece with his near-pathological modesty. (He is a keen footballer. Which position? 'Terrible.') Being fair-minded matters too. He adds a postscript to his memory of leaving Westminster. 'I'd also say I don't in any way feel superior to people who do make a career in politics. I still believe we need good, professional politicians.' Turning back to Mountainhead, his even-handedness reaches a kind of event horizon. Armstrong , it transpires, feels sorry for Elon Musk. 'Musk has done huge damage in the world, particularly with Doge, but I have a lot of sympathy for him.' The owner of X was brutally bullied as a schoolboy and according to a 2023 biography, had a difficult relationship with his father. 'This is a traumatised human being,' says Armstrong. Still, not every bullied child ends up making apparent Nazi salutes onstage. 'Yeah. That wasn't great.' But there are other sides to Armstrong. For all the hints of bumble and awkwardness, he has also had the discipline to build a stellar career. And the more measured he is in person, the more Mountainhead feels like the work of a grinning Id, rising up to take a scalpel to his subjects, with their pretensions to philosophy, and dark indifference to life. ('I'm so excited about these atrocities,' a character beams as the world goes violently awry.) But his sympathy has its limits. 'I do think the cocoon they're in makes it hard for them to remember other people are actually real. But they've also been quick to give up trying. And some definitely feel the superior person shouldn't have to try anyway.' More to the point, though, Armstrong finds the tech moguls funny. Much of the grimness of a Musk or Thiel is also brilliantly ridiculous: the epic lack of self-knowledge, the thinness of skin. Having studied them as he has, would he expect his real-life models to be enraged by the film? 'Oh no. They'd instantly dismantle it in a way that would be 50% completely fair, and 50% totally facile. But they wouldn't see any truth to it.' Still, Mountainhead is something very rare: a movie that feels as contemporary as TikTok. For Armstrong, after Succession and now this, you might think stories about the moment had become addictive. He frowns. Is a period piece next, in fact? Victorian bonnets? 'Maybe. Genuinely maybe. Because I'm not actually that drawn to ripped-from-the-headlines ideas.' The frown deepens. 'Am I not? I don't know. I'm losing faith in my own answer, because I evidently am. I mean, I'm not going to claim I don't like writing about right now. But honestly, at the same time – I'd be pleased to get out of it.' Mountainhead is available to own digitally now
Zawya
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Zawya
Engel & Völkers closes record $50mln deal on Mountainhead Estate from HBO film starring Steve Carell
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Engel & Völkers has successfully sold the estate featured in the HBO satirical comedy-drama Mountainhead, starring Steve Carell, for more than 50 million US dollars (approx. 43.2 million euros), making it the most expensive property sale ever recorded in the state of Utah. "This estate is truly one of a kind,' says Paul Benson, License Partner at Engel & Völkers Park City. 'It combines a world-class location with unmatched amenities and absolute privacy. Properties of this caliber rarely come to market.' The property is perched atop a mountain ridge in Deer Valley, near Park City in the US state of Utah, and was designed by Salt Lake City-based architect Michael Upwall, renowned for his signature "Mountain Modern" style. Spanning approx. 21,500 square feet (around 2,000 square meters) across seven levels, the residence features minimalist architecture with modern wood, marble, and glass elements. The upper floors include seven bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, along with multiple kitchens, living rooms, and dining areas. The lower levels boast an impressive array of amenities: a full-size indoor basketball court, a private bowling alley, an indoor climbing wall, a golf simulator with a dynamic floor, a wine cellar with bar, a home theater, a sauna, and a luxury wellness area. Outdoors, a 5,000-square-foot (approx. 465 square meters) heated terrace offers panoramic views across the valley and features an infinity-edge pool and hot tub. One of the property's most unique highlights is its private gondola, providing direct access to the adjacent ski resort. 'Our seller, Doug Bergeron, Senior Advisor to a leading private equity firm based in Chicago, created a mountain masterpiece. His bold ideas and relentless pursuit of excellence helped shape a home unlike anything the state had ever seen – so iconic it's now been captured on the big screen.' Engel & Völkers has sold the approx. 21,500-square-foot (approx. 2,000-square-meter) estate featured in the film Mountainhead, starring Steve Carell, for over 50 million US dollars (approx. 43.2 million euros). Located in the US state of Utah, the luxury ski property includes more than seven bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, and features exclusive amenities such as a private ski gondola. (Image credit: Engel & Völkers Park City) About Mountainhead Mountainhead is a 2025 US American satirical comedy-drama TV film written and produced by Jesse Armstrong, the Emmy-winning creator of Succession. The film stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef in leading roles. The story follows four tech billionaires who retreat to a secluded mountain estate for a weekend getaway – just as the outside world begins to spiral into chaos, triggered by the release of a powerful AI tool unleashed by one of them. With the exception of its opening scenes, the entire film takes place inside the striking, glass-walled, 21,500-square-foot ski property. -Ends- Press contact: Diana Džaka Bičo Marketing Director Office 21 Mezzanine Level, Golden Mile 2, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai UAE Dubai, United Arab Emirates Flor Pamintuan PR Account Director Ishraq Communications flor@ About Engel & Völkers: Engel & Völkers is a globally recognized leader in premium real estate services, specializing in the brokerage of high-end residential and commercial properties. The company also excels in the marketing of luxury yachts and private jets. Since 1977, Engel & Völkers has prioritized the unique needs and aspirations of both private and institutional clients, continually evolving its service portfolio to address every aspect of real estate. With a team of more than 16,700 professionals operating under the Engel & Völkers brand, the company's core competencies include sales, leaseholds, and consultancy on diverse real estate investment opportunities. Leveraging artificial intelligence and cutting-edge digital solutions, Engel & Völkers is redefining the standards for property brokerage and related services, setting a benchmark for innovation and excellence in the real estate industry. About Engel & Völkers Middle East: Established in 2014, Engel & Völkers Middle East has its offices in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The team consists of over 200 trusted agents, each focusing on premium residential and commercial properties, serving as experts in their respective areas. The company recently established a separate entity for commercial real estate (Engel & Völkers Commercial Middle East). Engel & Völkers Commercial serves as an entry point to exceptional commercial real estate opportunities in Dubai, from attractive office spaces to industrial complexes. The Private Office provides services for affluent clients and has access to premium real estate globally. Whether you're in the market to rent, buy, or sell a property, Engel & Völkers Middle East is a perfect choice to achieve your real estate goals.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Money problems: have we had enough of TV shows about rich people?
As fun as it was, Mountainhead seems to have broken something in quite a lot of people. For some, it was simply too timely. After all, it's one thing to release a film about tech billionaires fighting over the remnants of a world ravaged by war and AI, but quite another to do it while that exact thing was really happening. For others, Mountainhead marked the point where ultra-rich antiheroes reached full saturation. Writing in the AV Club last week, Saloni Gajjar made the argument that – between Mountainhead, Your Friends & Neighbors, The White Lotus and Nine Perfect Strangers – we have now arrived at a moment where television seems unable to tell stories that are about anything but the badly behaved rich. Gajjar's point is well made, but I think the truth might be a little bit more insidious than that. Yes, we do appear to be in the middle of an unceasing wealth glut on television, but the problem isn't just rich antiheroes. It's the rich, full stop. If you watch enough TV, you might have noticed a slow creep of aspiration. Houses are getting bigger. Clothes are becoming more stylish. Home furnishings have become so universally luxe that no matter what I'm watching – Shrinking, maybe, or The Four Seasons – I'll almost always find myself detaching from the plot to wonder where the characters bought their nice lamps. And once you start to notice it, you'll see it everywhere. The Better Sister is a generic murder mystery that is impossible to engage with because everyone lives their lives in a heightened state of monied comfort. Sirens is a whirlwind of impeccable interiors and not much else. Nobody on And Just Like That has spent even a second worrying about money, even though Carrie Bradshaw has basically got the exact same job as me and I can barely make it halfway around Lidl without having a panic attack about exceeding my overdraft. When I watched Good American Family, my first thought wasn't 'How awful that these people abandoned their infant daughter alone in an apartment while they moved to Canada,' but 'How the hell did these people afford an entire separate apartment for their infant daughter?' And this is the problem. At least when the rich people are the baddies you can argue that the shows are attempting to make a point about them. Succession essentially trapped its characters within the confines of their wealth. They might have it all, the show said, but only because they had to cash in their souls. And while The White Lotus has to return to the same well too many times by dint of its format, it still has plenty to say about the wealthy. This year, especially, it was the newly wealthy. Watch how quickly Belinda, a lowly spa manager in season one, traded in all of her defining traits the moment a windfall hit her account. I'd even argue that Mountainhead didn't qualify as wealth porn, because every single character was caught up in a frantic, exhausting status game to the exclusion of everything else in their lives. True, it featured a massive house but, as Variety's recent group interview revealed, they only chose it because it made the cinematographer want to kill himself. I'm no expert, but I don't think that the appeal of porn is how many suicidal tendencies it triggers. In other words, depictions of extreme wealth on TV are OK if they have a point. All these shows had a point. Billions had a point. Even Schitt's Creek managed to say something about money. The problem is when this wears away and characters are only rich because producers want to give the viewer something nice to look at. Sometimes this shift even happens on the same series. The Morning Show might have started as a glossy satire about Reese Witherspoon's plucky reporter being thrust into the well-to-do world of New York media, but it lost that bite long ago. Now it exists as a weird kind of internal competition to see which character can have the shiniest hair. And it's this Selling Sunset-ification of television that needs to stop. When we're confronted with such an unyielding parade of upscale comfort, the effect isn't as aspirational as producers probably think. We aren't left with a growling envy of how the other half lives; we're instead left worrying that they wouldn't know what real life was like if you bonked them over the head with a Poundland flipflop. Although if anyone from The Four Seasons does want to get in touch to tell me where all their nice lamps came from (and, where possible, some acceptable Temu dupes) I'd appreciate it.
