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HBO's "Mountainhead," written by "Succession"'s Jesse Armstrong and starring Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef

Jesse Armstrong, one of the UK's most successful screenwriters, is not one to rest on his laurels.

Hot off the back of his hit show Succession, which followed the twists and turns in the lives of media mogul Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, and his four children, Armstrong is back with his first feature-length film, Mountainhead.

It's a satire film about a group of four tech billionaire friends who go away to a mountain resort for the weekend but find themselves and their social media companies under scrutiny as social unrest spreads across the globe.

Speaking at the Hay Festival, Armstrong says: "People start by saying, 'Why are you doing these rich people again? And it's a fair question. They're tech billionaires. Succession was about a big media family. And I think it's because I'm interested in power, I don't think it's about just wealth.

"Succession was very clearly about why is the world like it is, who has power?"

HBO's Mountainhead, starring Steve Carrell and Ramy Youssef, was made very quickly.

"We did it at great speed. I pitched it in December and wrote it in January... carried on re-writing it through pre-production and then shot it in 22 days, then edited it.

"We only finished (editing) about a week ago and it's on TV this weekend!"

Armstrong, 54, wanted to do a quick turnaround on the film to try to capture the feeling and pace of technological developments and society's fear about keeping up.

"The anxieties that we have about technology, especially AI, feel very present and move quite fast. And I wanted to try and write it in the same mood as you might be when you're watching it, so I was keen to do it quickly," he says.

"Another attraction for me was that I've never directed anything before and it made me feel less anxious to run at it and do it really, really quickly."

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