Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman Movie Finds New Hope as Neon Circles ‘Artificial’ After Amazon Exit
Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming film “Artificial” may have found a new path forward after being dropped by Amazon MGM Studios. The movie, which tells a fictionalized story inspired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the dramatic events surrounding the company, is now reportedly being pursued by Neon for U.S. distribution rights.
The news was first reported by Puck co-founder and journalist Matt Belloni. According to the report, Neon is currently exploring a deal to bring the film to theaters after Amazon MGM decided to step away from the project.
“Artificial” was originally planned for an early 2027 release through Amazon MGM. However, the studio dropped the film shortly after announcing a major partnership with Altman’s OpenAI. The deal reportedly involved Amazon Web Services providing cloud services to OpenAI in a massive agreement worth around $50 billion.
Following Amazon’s decision, representatives for the film began showing the movie to other major studios and distributors. According to reports, companies including Netflix, A24, Focus Features, and Warner Bros.’ Clockwork label watched the film but chose not to move forward.
The movie, written by “Saturday Night Live” writer Simon Rich, focuses on a fictional version of the events that took place at OpenAI in 2023. During that period, Altman was suddenly removed as CEO by the company’s board of directors before returning just days later. The situation created one of the biggest leadership crises in the technology world.
Andrew Garfield stars as Altman in the film, while Yura Borisov plays OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who is portrayed as one of the key figures involved in the conflict. The cast also includes Monica Barbaro as OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Mark Rylance as AI expert Geoffrey Hinton, and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk.
The project has already drawn comparisons to “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s acclaimed film about the creation of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. However, reports suggest that “Artificial” takes a much darker approach, especially when exploring the risks and cultural impact of artificial intelligence.
On “The Town” podcast, Belloni discussed the reaction from one person who saw the film, describing it as “grim, it’s dark, it goes there, and it makes you feel bad after watching it about the future of the human race.”
According to Belloni, Amazon MGM reportedly felt the finished movie was darker than originally expected. The studio later released a statement explaining its decision to move away from the project while still praising Guadagnino’s work.
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” Amazon MGM said. “We believe that ‘Artificial’ will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”
Guadagnino already has a working relationship with Amazon MGM, which released his previous movies “Challengers” and “After the Hunt.” “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, became his biggest box office success, earning around $96 million worldwide. “After the Hunt,” which also featured Andrew Garfield, performed much weaker commercially and earned about $9.4 million.
With Neon now interested, “Artificial” could soon have a new distributor and a chance to reach audiences. The film’s future remains uncertain, but the project appears far from finished.
Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!
