Andrew Garfield’s Sam Altman Movie ‘Artificial’ Finally Has a Trailer, and Its Journey to Theaters Has Been Almost as Dramatic as Its Plot

Few upcoming films have generated as much off-screen drama as Luca Guadagnino’s latest project, a dramatization of one of Silicon Valley’s most chaotic corporate sagas. Long before a single frame reached audiences, the movie itself became tangled in the very kind of boardroom controversy it set out to depict.

That controversy began earlier this year when original distributor Amazon MGM Studios abruptly dropped the nearly-finished film, a decision that raised eyebrows given the timing. The move came just months after Amazon signed a massive partnership deal with OpenAI, leading many to speculate the studio wanted distance from a project scrutinizing the very company it had just invested billions into.

Now, months after Neon swooped in to rescue the project, the first trailer for ‘Artificial‘ has finally arrived, giving audiences their clearest look yet at Andrew Garfield’s transformation into OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The teaser confirms the film will hit theaters this Christmas, positioning it as a major awards-season contender heading into the final stretch of the year.

‘Artificial’ centers on the infamous five-day corporate upheaval in November 2023, when Altman was abruptly fired by OpenAI’s board before dramatically returning to the company just days later. Directed by Guadagnino from a script by ‘SNL’ alum Simon Rich, the film reunites the director with Garfield following their previous collaboration on ‘After the Hunt’.

The ensemble surrounding Garfield reads like a murderers’ row of recent awards-circuit talent, including Yura Borisov as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and Mark Rylance portraying Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning researcher often referred to as the “Godfather of AI.” Ike Barinholtz rounds out the marquee cast playing OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, alongside supporting turns from Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Koch, and Billie Lourd.

Garfield has been candid about the responsibility of portraying a real, still-active tech executive without ever having met him personally. “I don’t know Sam Altman. I’ve never met him,” Garfield told Esquire U.K., explaining that his performance was built entirely from the screenplay, court transcripts, interviews, and independent research rather than any direct relationship with his subject.

Beyond simply dramatizing corporate intrigue, the film has been described in official festival materials as tackling much larger questions about technology’s trajectory, tracing two decades of machine learning research and what organizers have called “technocratic recklessness” leading up to the present moment. That framing positions ‘Artificial’ as something closer to a moral reckoning than a straightforward business drama.

‘Artificial’ will make its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 5, following its surprise last-minute addition to the festival’s main slate after the Amazon controversy initially threatened to sideline it entirely. Neon is reportedly planning a limited awards-qualifying theatrical run beginning in late December, positioning the film squarely within this year’s awards conversation.

The film also carries notable technical pedigree behind the camera, featuring cinematography from Malik Hassan Sayeed, editing from longtime Guadagnino collaborator Marco Costa, and an original score and songs composed by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn.

Given everything the film has already weathered just to reach theaters, from a high-profile distributor exit to a scrambled festival rollout, ‘Artificial’ arrives with a real-world backstory nearly as dramatic as the boardroom chaos it depicts on screen.

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